The Minister of Water and Environmental Affairs, Ms Edna Molewa officially launched the National Environmental Compliance and Enforcement Report (NECER) 2011/12 on Thursday, 22 November in Cape Town. The report’s objective is to provide a national overview of environmental compliance and enforcement activities undertaken by relevant institutions across the country from April 2011 to March 2012.

The report includes the work of the Environmental Management Inspectorate (EMI), commonly known as the Green Scorpions. The Green Scorpions are a network of environmental compliance and enforcement officials from national, provincial and municipal government.  It is these EMIs that are tasked with ensuring the implementation of, and adherence to specific pieces of national environmental legislation.

Criminal enforcement
Infringements seem to have come down with a total of 1 339 arrests were made by the Green Scorpions as compared to 1988 in the previous financial year leading to 1080 criminal dockets this year compared to 718 in previous year. Conviction rates also seem to have improved with 82 for the current period, ten more than the previous period.
A total of 759 admission-of-guilt fines were paid to the value of R470 080, while in the previous financial year, 1 245 fines amounting to a total of R867 101 were paid.
Administrative fines

The total value of money paid as a result of the issuing of Section 24 G administrative fines more than doubled, from about R8.3 million in 2010/11 to about R17.6 million in 2011/12. The total number of fines issued also showed a corresponding increase from 58 to 86 in the same reporting periods. These fines are paid as a consequence of the illegal commencement of Environmental Impact Assessment and waste management listed activities.
Compliance

The number of facilities inspected for compliance with environmental legislation was reported to be 1 724 in 2011/12, compared to 1 954 in the previous reporting period. During the course of inspecting these facilities, a total of 2 482 non-compliances were reported, of which 562 were considered to require an enforcement response. The 2011/12 financial year has seen a focus in enforcement activities in relation to proactive industrial compliance and enforcement work. The previous reporting period revealed that allowing a grace period for facilities to come into compliance was not achieving the desired results and consequently, resources are now being focussed on criminal as well as administrative enforcement processes.
In March 2012, the Environmental Management Inspectorate (EMI) held its fourth Environmental Compliance and Enforcement Lekgotla, which was themed, “Pause, Hold, Engage: Green Scorpions: Half a Decade On.” and was intended to provide the Inspectorate with an opportunity to take stock of its performance over the last five years and assess whether it has been successful in executing the Constitutional mandate to ensure an environment that is not harmful to our citizens’ health and well-being. This event included a multi-stakeholder panel discussions with participation from the NGO, industry association, legal, academic and research sectors; as well as an awards ceremony aimed at giving due recognition to the EMI and prosecutors that have displayed outstanding commitment to protecting the environment.
With the foundation for environmental legislation having firmly been set in South Africa over the past decade, the greatest challenge now is that of implementation and delivery. Ensuring that such legislation is implemented and achieves its purposes is largely the responsibility of EMIs and the NECER is a collation of their experiences and findings in this work.
The 2011/12 edition marks the fifth of its kind since the inception of the EMI also known as the Green Scorpions.  The report highlights the significant efforts of the EMI sector to ensure that the principles of sustainable development and the-polluter-pays are practically implemented through the many inspections, investigations and other compliance and enforcement activities that make up the daily routine of EMI officials. The results and impact of this work are evident in the statistics contained in the report, which show the commitment and dedication of the Green Scorpions. Members of the public are urged to report environmental incidents and crimes to the 24 hour hotline 0800 205 005. Readers wishing to access the full report, can log on to:

www.environment.gov.za/?q=content/other_documents/reports#environment_compliance