REHABILITATION OF MINING AREAS
ENVIRONMENTAL LAW ON FINANCIAL PROVISIONING
Persons holding an environmental authorisation for a mining activity, including a holder of a mining right, a prospecting right and mining permit, among others, are now responsible for maintaining and retaining a financial provision until a closure certificate is issued by the Minister: Mineral Resources.
Previously this responsibility (in terms of NEMA) remained in force notwithstanding the issuing of a closure certificate. Thus, with the new amendments, the responsibility to maintain and retain financial provisioning for rehabilitation and mitigation, ends when a closure certificate is issued.
Once the closure certificate is issued, the financial provision in respect of latent or residual environmental impacts, including the pumping and treatment of extraneous and polluted water – must be transferred to the Minister: Mineral Resources.
Minister: Mineral Resources in consultation with Minister: Water Affairs may approve an annual drawdown of the financial provision for a maximum of 10 years to support final decommissioning and closure.
Where the financial vehicle is insurance, the Minister must access the funds on issuing the closure certificate.
Other responsibilities of persons holding an environmental authorisation for a mining activity, including a holder of a mining right, a prospecting right and mining permit, among others, include:
reviewing and adjusting the environmental liability;
carrying out an independent audit on the financial provision and the basis of the calculations;
submitting an audit report to Minister: Mineral Resources;
publishing the review decision ;
undertaking mitigation and rehabilitation measures annually
Where a person fails to carry out mitigation and rehabilitation of environmental impacts, the Minister: Mineral Resources or Minister: Water Affairs may upon written notice to such person, use all or part of the financial provision to carry out rehabilitation or management of the environmental impact.