More legislation sent back to drawing board
Quite frankly, I am beginning to lose patience. How difficult is it, really, for government to get logistics right?
Water and Environmental Affairs Minister Edna Molewa’s tyre recycling plan, which she launched last week despite outrage from a sizeable part of the tyre fitment and manufacture sector, has been withdrawn. How embarrassing.
First, it’s embarrassing for the minister and her staff; second, it’s embarrassing for South Africans in general. Yet another piece of legislation or regulation added to the “sent back because it wasn’t done properly or drafted well enough” list. I can almost imagine Cabinet ministers lined up on President Jacob Zuma’s carpet like naughty schoolkids in the headmaster’s office. Almost, because I am not sure that does happen. It should.
It’s also embarrassing that it took legal action from the South African Tyre Process Company (SATRP) to stop Molewa forcing through the Recycling and Economic Development Initiative of South Africa (Redisa) after SATRP told her (this appears most evident from the affidavit filed in the South Gauteng High Court) its gazetting was not legal procedurally.
Yes, procedure is important. There’s a reason why we require that new legislation be released for comment, and the government should not see this as a tedious exercise (which, I admit, it can most probably be at times), but should keep in mind the aim of this rule: better legislation. No one person or committee knows best. Collaboration is tedious at times, but better.
However, if the withdrawal is only to “attend to procedural requirements” without properly looking at what the legal requirements are for a tyre recycling plan, without looking at what South Africa has promised to international bodies regarding this issue and without — now that permission for resubmission has been given — taking another, objective, look at the SATRP plan, then all this is just posture. It is not just the letter of the law that we must attend to, but its spirit.
Otherwise it’s just smoke and mirrors.
Tags: legislation, recycling, tyres
February 3rd, 2012 at 9:34 pm
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