MEC for North West Department of Agriculture, Conservation, Environment and Rural Development, Mr Boitumelo Tshwene re-emphasised his department’s intent to vigorously combat unlawful environmental activities, saying departmental conservationists will in partnership with the Green Scorpions and the South African Police Service intensify unannounced raids and apprehend those in contravention with the law that governs environmental activities.
MEC Tshwene said this during his departmental budget vote presentation at the North West Provincial Legislature on Tuesday.
Expressing his support to the Minister for Environmental Affairs Ms Buyelwa Sonjica’s adopted approach in urgently dealing with these crimes, MEC Tshwene concurs that to address these crimes adequately, enforcement and compliance capacity needs to be increased. “And as the minister puts it, this will only be effective if the department is to bring the criminal justice system into the equation,” expressed MEC Tshwene.
Tshwene also informed the legislature of his department’s intention to continuously strive for acceptable turn-around times when dealing with applications for environmental authorisations. He said during the previous financial year, the department managed to finalise 74 percent of applications received which was done within the legislated timeframe.
“Our target for the current financial year is to increase the number of processed applications to 80 percent. We are optimistic that this target will be met because our environmental impact assessment staff has been adequately trained to respond to the demand of authorization service,” asserted MEC Tshwene.
MEC Tshwene said his department was able to comply with the prescripts of the promulgated National Environmental Management Waste Act, in that a provincial integrated waste management plan has been developed and is currently being implemented.
“In implementing this plan, we have established and launched a waste forum which will promote absolute adherence to the Waste Management Act by coordinating all waste related issues throughout the province,” announced MEC Tshwene.
Tshwene said his department will during the current financial year effectively facilitate the three environmental cooperation agreements namely, the climate change project with Manitoba, the cooperation agreement with North West Parks and Tourism Board and the Finnish cooperation agreement on the support to environment and sustainable development North West implementation project.
He added that through both the internal and external environmental programmes, the department will roll out environmental education and outreach programmes for learners and educators, and establish and support ten environmental youth clubs with a membership of 300 during the 2010/11 budget year.
