Chairperson, I think it's going to be difficult to follow on after such a vibrant speaker. Everybody became animated when Mr Sibande was at the podium. Thank you, hon Sibande. It would otherwise have been a very dull debate.
Let me start with a matter that rightfully seems to be a concern - the issue of acid mine drainage. I want to dispel the notion that the department is not doing anything about it.
Firstly, we have a programme in the department, which we initiated ourselves, where we are looking at the looming crisis that is confronting us. We put money into that programme, about R6,9 million. That is why you saw us launching this programme together with one of the mines.
We could not fold our arms when there was a looming crisis. We are quite aware of the polluter pays principle, but we could not wait until there was a crisis before we acted, as government. We try to be proactive, and we are taking the mines on board.
Secondly, we are issuing directives. As we speak, we have issued 22 directives to all the defaulting mines. The reality of the situation is that the issue of compliance is difficult because our capacity to enforce our laws was very limited. That is why we are now busy with both the Blue and the Green Scorpions.
We have even begun to employ people, some of whom we are busy training. I was signing some kind of certificates which my director-general for the environment gave me. I am still waiting for my DG for water. We are training those people as we speak. They need to be trained to have a technical understanding of both water and the environment; so we are busy with this.
That is also why we are saying, much as the polluter will pay and the directives will be given, what happens thereafter? They get away with murder. Hence we are bringing back the courts. We are bringing back these courts because the present criminal courts do not take environmental crime as their core function. They are quite right; they have problems of crime in the country. That is why we are bringing back the environmental courts.
We should have already launched the courts, but there was a delay on the side of the other department we are working with. We are set to launch them, and they are going to start as soon as possible. So, all of those things, Mr Watson, are meant to deal not only with mine pollution, but also with other industrial problems such as medical waste, which is becoming a health hazard. All of these things are on track in terms of the plans that we are putting together. The other issue that is important for us to appreciate is the national environmental management plan, EMP, which is guiding us in terms of environmental matters. There has to be an alignment between the national EMP and the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act, Act 28 of 2002, which is the mining law that was amended to accommodate mines. We are trying to bring these together.
As long as we have not made that alignment, we will be falling short, but we are not folding our arms. There are measures to address that. I am happy that people are concerned about this. If people ignore our directives, we charge them. We have an example, for instance, where Grootvlei has been charged for polluting the Blesbokspruit. [Interjections.] My department will give you the date, but it has been charged. There is a lot that we are doing with regard to that.
The chairperson is not here, but she spoke about the sharing of best practice. The Blue Drop and Green Drop programmes are about ensuring that the best practice within municipalities is shared.
The issue of raw sewage is another big challenge. However, we don't call it that; we call it the waste water treatment works. This must be understood in its proper context. The Constitution gives the ownership of those systems to municipalities. These systems are owned by municipalities.
As we all know, function is followed by funding. So, whatever we want to do - be it support, help, etc - we can't take full responsibility for the maintenance, refurbishment and operations of those systems because we do not have the necessary funding.
What happens with municipalities is that some of them do not have the technical capacity, so you've got a mismatch of problems. The turnaround strategy for local government is busy addressing this. We were part of the turnaround strategy development. We are working together in this regard. I think it is also a very important issue that I should respond to.
I really agree with whoever raised the issue of the skills shortage. We need to be prioritising on the shortage of skills. Ours is a specialised function. You need specially trained people. It takes about seven years to produce one engineer. That is a fact of life!
The economy, as we speak, is in need of engineers. It is a situation where we are competing not only with each other as departments, but also with the private sector. And, of course, you know that when it comes to money, the salaries of the private sector are much more lucrative. It's a challenge, but we are doing something about it.
We have a training institution for the Departments of Water and Environmental Affairs where we are beginning to build some of the skills within the department. We are also working with the Seta, Salga, the Department of Higher Education and Training and some of the academic institutions. On the ... [Interjections.]