3.5.3 Integrated and multiple licensing

3.5.3(1)
DEA’s goal is to provide integrated licensing systems for activities requiring environmental authorisation in terms of NEMA and other sectoral statutes. To this end, section 44 of the Waste Act, “Co-operative governance in waste management license applications”, explicitly provides for integrated licenses. The intention is to streamline licensing for activities that may require licensing in terms of multiple statutes, and for which different government departments may be the licensing authority.

3.5.3(2)
An integrated license must stipulate the statutory provisions in terms of which it has been issued, the authorities that have issued it and to whom applications for amendments or cancellations should be addressed, and the appeal procedure that should be followed.

3.5.3(3)
In practical terms, since the value of an integrated license rests in large part on an integrated license application procedure, the implication is that the NEAS system needs to be sufficiently flexible to accommodate not only licensing requirements for basic and full assessment processes in terms of NEMA, but also licensing requirements in respect to activities that may require authorisation by multiple organs of state in terms of different statutes in order to commence.

3.5.3(4)There are instances in which multiple authorisations are required from the environmental authorities located in different spheres of government. In these instances the sphere responsible for the dominant activity will take responsibility for the required authorisations.