Government Notice No. 517 in Government Gazette No. 44701 of 11 June 2021

Advisory Note from the IQ Desk

Government Notice No. 517 in Government Gazette No. 44701 of 11 June 2021 provides that activity 21E of Listing Notice 1 will come into effect 6 months after publication of Notice 517, thus on 11 December 2021. Organs of state will, with effect from 11 December 2021, need to apply for environmental authorisation for activities which have been exempted in terms of section 106(1) of the MPRDA from the provisions of sections 16, 20, 22 and 27 of the MRPDA, that have not commenced on that date. Note that where other listed or specific activities have been triggered by the development in question (under the 2017 amendments) such would be deemed as unlawfully commenced with.  

Activity 21E of LN1 will only be triggered for activities commencing on or after 11 December 2021. If an organ of state has commenced with the use of a borrow pit before the effective date of 11 December 2021, environmental authorisation will not be required for the current operations covered in the scope of the approved EMPr (under the MPRDA).

Where there are changes/expansion to the operation that occur after the effective date of 11 December 2021 i.e. changes that were not applied for and not authorized in the EMPr (under the MPRDA), then environmental authorisation will need to be applied for any listed or specified activities that are triggered by such changes/expansion.