Compliance with environmental legislation
We have for many years had processes in place to ensure that
non-compliance with legal requirements is identified, reported
and investigated and that corrective and preventative measures
are implemented.
During the year our internal audit exercise, at a selection of
sites visited in the year, uncovered weaknesses in reporting
processes and controls designed to ensure that all environmental
legal contraventions were identified and reported to the
environmental liaison committee. Issues identified relate to
understanding and application of the corporate reporting
procedures and identification of legal contraventions.
As a result of these findings, we have engaged an external service
provider to assess the adequacy of reporting procedures and
design and operation of controls and reporting processes at all
significant sites. Any environmental legal contravention identified
through this process will be recorded in the 2009 annual report.
For this reporting period, 46 (2007: 50) environmental legal
contraventions were recorded.
Most of the environmental legal contraventions related to water
events. For the financial year, 6 (2007: 0) legal contraventions
were recorded in terms of the Eskom operational health
dashboard. The significant increase in the number compared to
the previous year is due to the inclusion of additional criteria
related to repeated legal contraventions.
One was due to a letter of censure following the cutting of
vegetation without the necessary permit.
A further incident was
related to a repeat of an event related to the non-compliance with
conditions of authorisation for the construction of a 132kV power
line. The significant increase in water-related contraventions was
as a result of higher-than-average rainfall, compounded
by human error and equipment failure, resulting in
unauthorised releases of water from our power stations.
This resulted in four such repeat events.
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Click here for more detail on the definition of a legal contravention. |
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