Chairperson, hon Minister, Deputy Minister and members, the DA is as proud as all other parties to be associated with what is generally an extremely well-run department, a department that does not only focus on planning for outcomes but actually achieving those outcomes. Minister, I will be spending my Freedom Day in the iSimangaliso Wetland Park - finally, I'm getting there. I really look forward to enjoying the achievements of Mr Andrew Zaloumis and his entity.
We are concerned that air-quality management and waste management are not afforded a sufficient degree of priority by government. The National Air Quality Officer, Mr Peter Lukey, is a valuable asset to the department. We are not convinced that Mr Lukey is adequately supported by the strategic prioritisation which is accorded his portfolio or by commitment at other levels of government. The 2004 State of the Environment report explains the real need for air-quality management, with particular reference to poor households burning fossil fuels:
The total direct health costs due to respiratory conditions related to fuel-burning emissions were estimated to be around R3,5 billion in 2002. Exposure to fuel combustion-related pollution concentrations was estimated to be associated with some 300 premature deaths.
The DA's commitment to environmental protection is founded on its commitment to creating opportunity for all. The ability of the poor and the immune-compromised to pursue opportunities is clearly inhibited by exposure to substandard air quality. South Africa cannot afford delays in addressing this. However, the figures in the department's strategic plan do not indicate that solutions are close at hand. The 2009 projection of 23 municipalities suffering from substandard air quality by this year has now almost doubled to 43. Last year's target of 17 municipalities suffering sub- par air quality by 2013-14 has now increased to 37.
The 2019-20 financial year is now the target date for all the municipalities to boast acceptable air quality. The announcement of the Clean Fires campaign is very welcome but progress is dangerously slow. However, Mr Lukey can actually only achieve progress with the co-operation of provinces and municipalities. Air-quality management plans are required from both these spheres of government. At the end of 2009, only three provinces - the Western Cape, Gauteng and North West - and only 33 municipalities had plans in place or under development.
The poor and the sick deserve the commitment of all spheres of government. It is your task then, Minister, to execute the overarching control function to ensure that South Africans breathe clean air. People in places like the Durban South Basin, Secunda, Sasolburg, Nelson Mandela Bay - places across the country - are crying for that new National Environment Management: Air Quality Act to be fully enforced.
The concern-inducing lack of planning is also evident in the field of waste management and, particularly, hazardous and health-care risk waste management. The department's draft National Waste Management Strategy of March 2010 states:
In terms of the treatment and disposal of hazardous waste and health-care risk waste there is an urgent need for additional treatment capacity to be developed ... Most provinces have no hazardous waste facility and where a proven need for these facilities exists, measures to address this must be included in Provincial Integrated Waste Management Plans.
The National Environment Management: Waste Act, Act 59 of 2008, requires every province and every municipality to develop an integrated waste management plan. Now, strangely, Minister, your reply to a 2009 DA question stated that the Gauteng, North West and Western Cape provinces have developed hazardous-waste management plans. The other six provinces have not developed the above-mentioned plans. You went further and said:
No action was required to be taken to ensure the provinces develop hazardous waste management plans, as there was no legal requirement. The National Environment Management: Waste Act, Act 59 of 2008, requires the provincial departments to develop integrated waste management plans, which can incorporate hazardous waste should the provinces elect to do so. The hazardous waste management plans developed by the three provinces have not been submitted to the department and have not been assessed by the department, as there is no requirement to do so.
Minister, the National Environment Management: Waste Act does indeed require provincial plans to be submitted to your office for your approval. So please, follow your own law and, very importantly, make sure that all spheres of government do the same. Hazardous waste and health-care risk waste is generated in every province and it must form part of these plans. In October 2009, the DA released a discussion document on health-care risk waste. It was entitled "A Bloody Mess". We noted that South Africa generated 35% more waste than can be handled. The current situation could lead to a major disaster.
Further evidence of the dire situation was uncovered in November 2009 in Welkom, in the form of the largest illegal medical waste dump ever in South Africa. In March 2010, the DA questioned the department's actions to ensure compliance by health-care risk waste service providers. The Minister replied that no specific steps were being taken to bring health-care risk waste service providers into compliance. The department will in the next financial year establish a task team; it will develop a strategy to bring service providers into compliance.
The crisis already exists. We can not wait for next year and a future strategy. The DA proposes the urgent creation of a health-care waste management programme, involving the Department of Water and Environmental Affairs, the Department of Health and the provincial departments, to take direct responsibility for the regulation of medical-waste handling. The document "A Bloody Mess" details exactly what that programme would set out to do. We are pleased to hear the Deputy Minister's announcements with respect to health-care waste, and we will closely monitor progress. Chairperson and hon Minister, the DA's vision of opportunity for all certainly resonates in its response to environmental management. We will continue our quest for an environment that is conducive to wellbeing and to the creation of opportunity. Thank you, Chair. [Applause.]