After a prolonged fight and years of negotiation, the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism has finally succeeded in wresting mining environmental impact assessments (EIAs) from the Department of Minerals and Energy, after the two departments reached a settlement through its two ministers.
Last week the Mail & Guardian reported that environmentalists were apprehensive about the Department of Minerals and Energy’s continued ruling on mining EIAs, fearing that the department was handing out permits ”willy-nilly”.
The agreement between the two departments was negotiated by Marthinus van Schalkwyk and Buyelwa Sonjica, with Deputy President (and former minister of minerals and energy) Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka called in at one stage to mediate the process.
The M&G understands that all EIAs will now be streamlined under the National Environmental Management Act (Nema) and will be under the jurisdiction of the environmental affairs department. The Department of Minerals and Energy will continue to rule on mining EIAs, until the environmental department has built up the necessary capacity to handle them on its own. According to MPs, this will take about three years.
But the Democratic Alliance’s Gareth Morgan, who has been quite vocal about the issue in parliamentary portfolio meetings, requested that the two ministers appear before Parliament to announce the deal publicly. ”We have to get the ministers on record about the deal as, at present, the deal is not binding.”