Photo by: Duane Daws
JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Environmental Affairs Minister Edna Molewa has promised to “radically transform” her department’s approach to environmental management as environmental considerations were increasingly mainstreamed in development policies across the economy.
She told Parliament on Thursday that, among the interventions aimed at facilitating and supporting the implementation of sustainable development initiatives, amendments to the National Environmental Management Act had been affected so as to develop an integrated environmental regulatory system that included environmental authorisation for mining developments.
Accordingly, the Mineral Resources Minister would now issue mining-related environmental-impact assessment and waste licence authorisations – with the Environmental Affairs Minister being an appeals authority on mining.
The cooperative governance arrangement also aligned the simultaneous processing of air emission and water use licences for mining activities.
“This has necessitated amendments to the National Environmental Management, Waste, Air Quality Management and Water Services Acts. Further regulations to this effect are being developed and will be published in the next financial year,” she noted during her Budget Vote speech.