According to local Durban environmental watchdog — Groundwork, the experience has been ambiguous. Delays in delegating authority have placed local officials in an enforcement vacuum and without the legal mechanisms to take action. Some elements of the plan slipped into the slots between departments. For example prioritising non-So2 pollutants for standard setting has fallen between the Air Quality programme and the MPP.
Vehicle emissions which require a separate process and are often used as a decoy by polluting industry have been thrown into the MPP, while dirty fuels were taken out of the MPP due to industry demands that a socio-economic impact report be performed prior to any regulatory initiative. Government agreed and the report was commissioned to Nedlac, placing it beyond the influence of stockholders not represented in Nedlac.
Civil society reacts with a demonstration
Civil Society groups such as Groundwork have observed through this process that government decision-making processes have become “unwieldy and vulnerable to hijacking and uncertainty.” They explain that the processes are subject to being held in suspension by being perpetually delayed — a tactic used by powerful groups to limit the political process to more trivial issues while holding the big issues off the public agenda.
