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South Africa: Business Rubbishes New Waste Proposal
found at Business Day through http://allafrica.com (Johannesburg) 22 November 2007 by Linda Ensor Cape Town The government's legislative proposals to manage waste have been met with an outcry from businesses which raised their objections during parliamentary hearings yesterday on the National Environmental Management: Waste Bill. Whether it was Standard Bank's objections to the restrictions the proposals would place on the ability of banks to dispose of foreclosed property, or South African Breweries' (SAB's) concern about the bill's complexity, or the protest by the Metal Recyclers' Association over the inclusion of all forms of scrap metal in the definition of waste, the opposition of business to some clauses was unanimous. Business Unity SA said the proposals would have a "significant economic impact" but complained that they were "dominated by a command-and- control approach". It feared the implementation of new law would be impossible without the necessary standards and guidelines which would be forthcoming only over the next two years. The bill is a framework piece of legislation which seeks to give legal effect to the white paper on integrated pollution and waste management. Environmental affairs and tourism deputy director-general Joanne Yawitch told the committee earlier this week the current system lacked "cradle to grave" control over waste. The bill would require the licensing of all waste management activities and the preparation by industry of waste management plans on how to deal with waste generated by their operations. Analysts worry that the administrative burden on the environmental affairs and tourism department will be too onerous, as the bill requires it to issue licences to companies that collect, transport and treat waste. This is in addition to the thousands of environmental impact assessments the department must process each year and which have been blamed for delaying key investment decisions. Standard Bank senior manager Dorea Parsons argued that the "onerous" contaminated land provisions in the bill would have an unreasonable effect on banking practice, especially as they would be retrospective. Banks would be restricted and potentially prevented, she said, from perfecting their security in foreclosure proceedings through the sale of the property to a third party. "This will severely prejudice banks and significantly diminish the value of the security it holds over fixed assets," she said. Banks would also have to bear the cost of dealing with the contamination even though they were not responsible for it. This liability could run into millions of rand and might require Standard Bank to rethink its lending arrangements. The bill stipulated that if land was significantly contaminated, the authorities would have to be notified and stipulated conditions laid down by Environmental Affairs and Tourism Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk would have to be fulfilled before it could be transferred. Parsons pointed out that several foreign jurisdictions had recognised the need to protect banks from certain statutory obligations relating to contamination. The failure to do so initially in the US had caused problems for the sector. She argued that banks should be excluded from the obligation to notify the authorities or to rehabilitate in the case of the foreclosure of contaminated land. SAB said the bill would create unnecessary layers of administration and complexity. It also failed to provide positive fiscal incentives for waste reduction. These could be tax incentives or the reduction of waste charge rates. The Metal Recyclers' Association said the R10bn-a-year ferrous and nonferrous scrap metal industry would be financially burdened by the compliance costs imposed by the bill, which would threaten the viability of numerous small operators in the industry. For instance, they would have to comply with municipal bylaws which required the registration of vehicles transporting waste and pay annual registration fees. |
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