THE Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA), through its progressive legislative regime continues to balance the need to protect the environment with advancing the social and economic development of SA: particularly at a time of sluggish growth.Recent legislative amendments to streamline the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) application processes to bring them in line with the Infrastructure Development Act, has yielded major successes in terms of turnaround times and finalisation.The departmental budget vote speech delivered in the National Assembly last week notes that this has resulted in a 93.8% efficiency rate across all competent authorities.During the 2015/2016 financial years, a total of 1,371 applications were processed by all competent authorities, and of these, 1,286 were finalised within the legislated time frame of 300 days. The Department of Environmental Affairs was responsible for 279 of these applications.Infrastructure investment is a key priority of the Nati...
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