Deputy Speaker, it is important for this House to note that this oversight trip took place after communities pleaded with us in a committee meeting to deal with the unacceptably high levels of air pollution in priority areas. They came to hold us to account for the promise uTata Madiba made in 1995 for cleaner, less toxic air for communities around industrial plants.
The oversight visit made it abundantly clear to us that strong action was needed to uphold their constitutional "right to an environment that is not harmful to their health or wellbeing; and ... to have the environment protected" from pollution and ecological degradation.
Research studies, including those done by the World Health Organisation, attribute brain, heart and lung conditions that result in premature death to air pollution. Air pollution also degrades the surrounding land and water resources.
The department included industry during the development of the progressive National Environmental Management: Air Quality Act of 2004 and the listed activities and minimum emissions standards of 2013, which placed limits on these emissions.
Industry has known for over a decade what was to come, yet 36 big polluters still applied for postponements. The National Framework for Air Quality Management of 2012 guides what needs to be done in the case of postponement of applications. It clearly states that postponements may only be granted if there is compliance with current national ambient air quality standards. Priority areas do not comply, yet 23 of the approved applications come from these priority areas and were thus unlawfully granted, as admitted by the Department of Environmental Affairs.
Research indicates that as a result of this postponement Eskom alone will cost the fiscus billions of rands every year in accrued health costs and productivity. More gravely, an estimated 20 000 people will die prematurely, of which 1 600 will be children. Eskom's response? Ironically, they blame the poor for the air pollution. The people without electricity, who rely on fires to cook and warm themselves, are blamed.
By granting postponements the ANC government has given polluting industries the licence for at least another five to ten years to poison the only air that vulnerable communities have to breathe. Approving postponement applications in air pollution priority areas has undermined committee intervention, defied legislation and given industry the licence to kill, which assaults section 11 of the Constitution guaranteeing the right to life.
We call on the Minister to retract any postponement granted in any identified priority area. Thank you. [Applause.]
Hon Deputy Speaker, hon members, as the ANC we agree with the situation that we have observed. Firstly, this is real transformation. We have seen a situation where, during apartheid, most of these major polluters were basically given the right to pollute. Those polluters actually got away with murder for a very long time. They were focused on profits and nothing else, without taking care of the health of their own people.
The new dispensation has made sure that we are not giving people permission to pollute, but are concerned about ambient air quality, so that, wherever our people are, they are actually given the healthy lifestyles they deserve.
One of the things that I need to indicate is that this was an initial visit in a long programme of oversight that we are still going to undertake. We cannot conclusively say, just having visited Mpumalanga and Gauteng, that that is the situation in the entire country. We were supposed to have visited the south of Durban as well. We could not get there because we were urgently convened back in Parliament during that very week. We complied and came back here.
Now the enforcement of the legislation and these standards provides us with an opportunity to ensure that we reverse the apartheid situation that there was. Our people are going to benefit.
Applications have been referred to, to which the DA is opposed. I must say that in the main this obsession is with regard to Eskom, not every other company. This is because Eskom is a parastatal. We ask the question, and we even did so during the visit: Why the obsession with Eskom? Eskom did not apply for everything, or for all its power stations. It was just for some of them. We want to indicate here that you must take time to understand what these applications are about. It is not just a blanket approach, and the department is focused on whether these applications are objective or not.
In the portfolio committee we agreed with the department on the applications. To come here and grandstand is just not on. [Time expired.] [Applause.] Motion agreed to.
Report accordingly adopted.