Wasting the Nation.indd - Groundwork

Chapter 3: The politics of wastechannelled through strategic state owned enterprises – primarily Eskom, Transnet andDenel. Privatisation of these corporations, mandated by Gear, was therefore put ‘onhold’ but with the intention of laying the ground for productive private investment.At the same time, government expanded social spending and, although theenvironment still ranked at the bottom of government’s priorities, the DEAT’s budgetfor environmental management, supplemented by donor funding, expanded. In 2003,DEAT started setting up the Environmental Management Inspectorate – or GreenScorpions – and announced its presence by stinging the operators of an illegal toxicdump. The inspectorate was formally established in 2005, and now has 940 inspectors.The majority are in fact conservation officials and most of the rest are provincial andlocal government officials given extra training and rebranded as inspectors. The DEATitself has just under 50 inspectors. The inspectors are thus scattered across multipleinstitutional locations around the country. They are working, says the minister, “tochange the common perception in South Africa that government lacks the will to enforceour environmental legislation”. The unit secured 746 convictions of environmentalcriminals in 2007-8, up from 134 in the previous year. 50The report on which the minister based his statement has not yet been published butit seems that most of the convictions are for conservation offences such as poaching.Nevertheless, the green scorpions have secured convictions against industrial pollutersand this does mark a shift from the DEAT’s tradition of negotiating non-compliancewith big corporations. In consequence, EnviroServ sees “a growing demand forresponsible … waste management services” [2007: 21]. 51 The implication is that thereis less illegal dumping on the cheap. Whether this is so is an open question becauseno-one knows how much is produced. In 1999, DEAT’s State of the EnvironmentReport suggested that only 5% of hazardous waste “was disposed of at permitted …sites, indicating extensive illegal dumping and/or frequent accidents and spillages”[DEAT 2008: 15].The green scorpions respond to reported environmental crimes and have also initiatedinspections of targeted industries including iron and steel, cement plants and oilrefineries. Routine inspection, however, is in principle devolved to local level where50 Speech by Marthinus van Schalkwyk, Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism, at the 8th Conferenceof the International Network for Environmental Compliance and Enforcement, Cape Town, April 7, 2008.51 See also, Sibongile Khumalo, EnviroServ profit surges 36% after tightening of green laws, Business Report,February 19, 2008.Wasting the Nation - groundWork - 69 -