Deputy Minister, Rejoice Mabudafhasi
Director General, Nosipho Ngcaba
Deputy director-generals, advisors
Chief Directors, directors and all other members of staff
Good morning
We are meeting here as the leadership of the Department of Environmental Affairs, at a time that we are coming to the end of 2009. This year saw an ending of one administration of government and in our case the emergence of a new department. This Lekgotla gives us an opportunity to reflect on this year in order to plan for the remainder of the five year term of the current administration. A Lekgotla gives us an opportunity to reflect on our constitutional, legislative, policy imperatives and above all our quest to improve the lives of the people of South Africa.
Our litmus test is did we start the race well or are we still tying our shoe laces in the starting blocks? I certainly have had a baptism of fire in this last six months from having to deal with fisheries, climate change, conservation, biodiversity and the odd penguin, elephant and of course baboon and water.
Fellow leadership in the department, planning workshop, or Lekgotla as we call it, is part of the department’s effort to take a close look at its work locating it within the broader mandate of government that we received from the electorate in April this year. We promised our people that: “Working Together we can Do More, Better”. This is more than just a slogan, but a clarion call to action that we must all observe, more especially this leadership.
In this regard I appreciate the meetings that I was able to attend to listen to the concerns of the myriad of community organisations. I would like to thank the Director-General and the team. Engaging with the people on a regular basis is what will strengthen our democracy, allow our people a say in the natural resources, but importantly strengthen our ability to implement that which we have promised the people of South Africa.
In his state of the nation address, the President highlighted the 10 strategic priority areas for the government mandate period 2009 to 2014; these priorities are outlined in the medium term strategic framework (MTSF) document. This document should be our service delivery bible for the next five years. These priorities include:
* more inclusive economic growth, decent work and sustainable livelihoods
* economic and social infrastructure
* rural development, food security and land reform
* access to quality education
* improved health care
* the fight against crime and corruption
* cohesive and sustainable communities
* creation of a better Africa and a better world
* sustainable resource management and use
* a developmental state including improvement of public services.
The department has a role to play in all of the 10 points above. The green economy has the ability to stimulate economic growth and create decent jobs, environment has the ability to provide a career path, environment has a key role in providing a healthy society and so I can motivate all the other points. We should inculcate an integrated approach to all the major priorities that his government has agreed upon. We are not an island.
I have been in office for six months and during this relatively short period, I have been encouraged by the zeal and eagerness within this team and I am confident that we will make a significant contribution to National development priorities. Our environment outlook report provides an objective picture of the state of South Africa’s environment and resource base. As is to be expected, it contains good and bad news. It is important that we take note of these and make the necessary adjustments to secure a more sustainable future. Let me highlight one of the issues in the report not withstanding all the other important matters raised in it.
In a developing country such as South Africa, poor people tend to be the most vulnerable to environmental disturbance, because they have fewer resources to help them to cope with disaster. They have low incomes, restricted choices regarding location and employment, are less able to afford food or to save and accumulate assets, and are often powerless. The poverty gap indicates how far below the poverty line poor households live. In South Africa it has grown from R56 billion in 1996 to R81-billion in 2001. It indicates that poor households have not shared the benefits of economic growth:
“Poor rural households do not have the resources (land, finances, tools and training) to progress as agriculturalists, and land-based livelihood strategies fail to provide enough to accumulate sufficient of these resources to make it possible for them to reduce their vulnerability over time. People living in informal settlements often do not have access to safe water, storm water management, or sanitation services, which increases their vulnerability to infectious diseases. Nationally, nearly half of all informal dwellings, and more than one-third of traditional dwellings can be classified as vulnerable to environmental factors”.
This reminds us of the deep seated problems that we need to overcome and why environment has a pivotal role to contribute to the major discourse in the country. The global geo-political dynamics are further providing challenges for us to think deeper, act wiser and promptly. In less than two weeks, we will be in Copenhagen, engaged in one of the most difficult international negotiations of our time, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) COP 15.
We are going into this session, armed with a clear intent of ensuring that our national interest as a country is protected and that those that are largely responsible for the climate change challenge take the necessary commitments to deal with the issue. Equally important is the need for us to move with haste in the development of the national climate change response policy, the nation is awaiting direction from us on this critical issue and I cannot overemphasise the need to ensure a balance between our mitigation and adaptation actions and that these should be crafted within the principles of sustainable development.
We need to give more attention to our own programme at home, building on the medium and long-term programme we had initiated at an interdepartmental level that this department is supposed to lead. We can no longer ignore the accelerating environmental predicament which calls for urgent and decisive action. That is: ecosystem degradation, biodiversity loss, air pollution, climate change, increasing landfill sites point to our exploitation of natural resources and disregard to waste products and their consequences. As the custodians of the environment it is clear that we need to move to a new way of doing business, we require environmental policy measures and legislation that balances development with environmental sustainability.
Enforcement should be enhanced through Green Scorpions and establishment of environmental court. In response to the national call for the enhancement of the environment sector as a potential contributor to economic growth, the department will pursue and explore further the concept of green economy and green jobs including scaling up labour intensive natural resources management practices that contribute to decent work and livelihood opportunities.
The department has identified a number of environmental programmes that forms part of the Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP). Most of the rehabilitation interventions undertaken by some of the programmes rely on construction skills for the installation of gabions, concrete and other types of structure. It is important to continue to pursue our programmes aimed at protecting our marine life, given that there is already a decline of the stocks with some of the species being endangered, for example: the shark. Hence 2009 has been declared the year of the shark. On the basis of the importance of the oceans, as you already know, I have declared October as Marine Month to focus on the significance of our seas and marine life. On the basis of available science, we have significant numbers of populations in the top ocean predators, that is: the shark and the whale. On that basis we have added these two species to the big five and then have a resultant big seven.
The declining fish stocks pose a huge challenge to fisheries management in South Africa. This is not only a national phenomenon, but a global problem with approximately 25 percent of the world’s marine fish stocks being considered over-exploited. This requires innovative management strategies if we want to ensure the sustainability of our marine living resources. A government-wide intervention is required in the coastal communities to address coastal poverty and alternative livelihood opportunities in light of declining fish stocks.
Most of the environmental crimes are often committed by organised crime syndicates with international connections. In order to address these crimes adequately, enforcement and compliance capacity needs to be increased, but that is only effective if we bring the criminal justice system into the equation. Partnerships with security institutions such as South African Police Service (SAPS), National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), the National intelligence Agency (NIA), the Asset Forfeiture Unit (ASU) and the Department of Defence in order to deal more effectively with such environmental crimes are crucial.
I have been confronted in all my engagements with the stakeholders on severe criticism levelled at marine and coastal management. A turn around strategy is urgently required if we want to win the confidence and trust of the people in these sectors again that is so evidently lost. We have recently launched the national “Clean and Green” programme in Umtata; I must commend all the officials who were involved in preparing for the launch.
To this effect I urge you to continue with the same spirit in rolling out the programme to all parts of the country to ensure that we bring back the dignity and pride within our townships and villages. The appreciation of environmental sustainability benefits is limited to the elite few within our societies; we therefore need to empower people to take up available opportunities through creating awareness and education about the environment.
In recent months, I have come to understand the complex dynamics of the environment sector, and one of the major challenges is that the sector is severely under resourced and that environmental expenditure at times needs to be justified on the basis of the prevention of environmental costs and on public good grounds. There has been some movement in the valuation of environmental goods and services and the valuation of environmental costs but the sector still faces the challenge of providing sound quantifications of environmental costs and benefits in support of additional budget allocations for the protection of environmental public goods.
My evaluation of the MINMEC’s that we had to date, is that we need to find the balance in allowing a more meaningful role for the MEC’s in these meeting and in particular how we can ensure that the provinces continue to play a complementary role and assist us in a collective way to implement our programmes at a provincial level. We should consider allowing the provinces to participate more in the MINMEC’s. The environment sector has historically generated little of its own revenue, aside from conservation bodies. This is likely to change over the next five years for a number of reasons. There is the growing acceptance of the need to recover the administrative costs of authorisations directly from the polluter.
For example, the new Air Quality Act and Waste Management Act both provide for the recovery of costs for the provision of licenses. This has the potential to raise additional revenue to finance costs of authorisations and compliance monitoring. The environmental fiscal reform (EFR) process of the National Treasury provides further impetus to raising revenue through the implementation of the polluter pays principle. The EFR policy outlines a clear framework for the establishment of environmental charges and taxes.
This opens many new opportunities for the use of economic instruments in support of environmental objectives and has the ancillary objective of raising revenue for the fiscus and for environmental authorities. We will take this discussion up to Cabinet in the 1st quarter of 2010 to educate Cabinet and gather support on this critical piece of work, this will be preceded by a summit that should focus on all elements associated with valuing the sector, creating jobs, green economy etc.
Our task is noble, our objectives clear, let us all put shoulder to the wheel to build on our successes of previous years, learn from the challenges we have experienced. My desire is that we continue to find more and more and more convergence between water and the environment so that we can truly say as one department, that together we can do more, and we can do better.
I thank you.
Issued by: Ministry of Water and Environmental Affairs
19 November 2009
