DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL AFFAIRS
DEPARTEMENT VAN OMGEWINGSAKE
Ref: 02/1/5/2
MINISTER
QUESTION NO. 976 FOR WRITTEN REPLY: NATIONAL ASSEMBLY
A draft reply to Mr G.R. Morgan (DA) to the above-mentioned question is
enclosed for your consideration.
Ms Nosipho Ngcaba
DIRECTOR-GENERAL
DATE:
APPROVED/AMENDED
MINISTER
DATE:
NATIONAL ASSEMBLY
+
(For written reply)
QUESTION NO. 976
INTERNAL QUESTION PAPER NO 12 of 2009
DATE OF PUBLICATION: 28 August 2009
Mr G.R. Morgan (DA) to ask the Minister of Water and Environmental Affairs:
(1) Whether the department is investigating any measures to improve the
turnaround time for the Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs)
attached to government housing projects; if not, why not; if so, what
are the relevant details;
(2) whether the department was approached by (a) the Department of Human
Settlements or (b) any provincial housing department about mechanisms
to improve the turnaround time for EIAs for housing developments; if
so, what are the relevant details;
(3) what are the key barriers to improving the turnaround time for EIAs
for housing projects?
NW1177E
MR G.R. MORGAN (DA)
SECRETARY TO PARLIAMENT
HANSARD
PAPERS OFFICE
PRESS
976. THE MINISTER OF WATER AND ENVIRONMENTAL AFFAIRS ANSWERS:
1) The Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) function is constitutionally
a concurrent function between the National and Provincial spheres of
government. This means that provincial authorities are 100% autonomous
in terms of their EIA functions and the National Department cannot
summarily intervene in these functions. Government housing projects
fall within the mandate of the provincial authorities. It should also
be mentioned that there is very little evidence of any significant
delays in provincial departments in as far as the processing of
Housing related EIA applications are concerned.
However the Department, through the Programme of Action (POA) of the
Infrastructure Cluster, is planning to expand the EIA Strategy for
Strategically Important Development (SID) to all government
infrastructure development projects, including government housing
projects. This approach allows for reduced time frames (reduced from
the regulated time frames) for processing EIA applications by ensuring
adequate human and financial resources to both process applications
and develop decision-support instruments, norms & standards, etc, that
would further aid expedient and effective decision-making. The SID EIA
approach is currently piloted with the EIA applications of Eskom,
Transnet and the PBMR and is enabled by financial contributions from
these State Owned Enterprises. The expansion of the SID EIA Strategy
to all government infrastructure development will however require
substantial financial resources and this underpins the Departmentâs
submission to the Department of Finance for additional funds. The
expansion of the SID strategy is dependent on securing such additional
funds.
It should further be noted that the Department of Environmental
Affairs (DEA) is also investigating various other measures to improve
the efficiency and effectiveness of the EIA system including the
improvement of the EIA Regulations (following the amendment of the
Act); the development of instruments such as Environmental Management
Frameworks and guidelines, etc.
2) The DEA was approached by the Department of Human Settlements (DoHS)
about mechanisms to improve the turnaround time for EIAs for housing
developments. In essence, their letter to DEA requested that a special
dispensation, not dissimilar of the SID approach described above, be
adopted for housing projects. A meeting in this regard was held
between the two Departments on 28 April 2009. This was followed up by
a letter from DEA, where the mandates of the national and provincial
EIA authorities were explained and wherein the DEA offered to
facilitate a meeting between the DoHS and the provincial EIA
authorities where interim solutions, better coordination and
cooperation could be discussed and agreed to. This DEA facilitated
meeting between DoHS and the 9 provincial environmental departments
responsible for the review of the EIA applications, took place on 10
September 2009. DEA undertakes to make the provincial departments
aware of the urgency of housing delivery projects and to request these
departments to prioritise the processing of such applications.
3) As per (1) above, evidence of delays on housing project related EIAs
is largely anecdotal and it is our understanding that the DoHS is
actually calling for a âmore expedient than regulated time framesâ
approach. The capacity audit and needs analysis study undertaken by
DEA revealed that although other factors also play a role, the EIA
authoritiesâ ability to deliver an effective and efficient service in
terms of the EIA system is dependent on adequate human and financial
resources. Neither DEA nor any of the provincial authorities currently
have adequate human resources and most EIA authorities do not have
adequate financial resources. Other challenges faced include
inadequate decision support systems such as Geographical Information
Systems (GIS), guidelines, policies, etc. in some provinces,
inadequate resources such as computers and pool vehicles and the vast
geographical areas to be serviced.
It is the view of DEA that these issues would generally also apply to
housing project related delays but have proposed that the meeting held
on 10 September 2009 also be utilised to identify additional barriers
to improvement of the turnaround time for EIAs for housing projects
specifically. Once these barriers have been identified with the
provinces, corrective measures will be proposed and an action plan
developed and implemented.