OK I realize that I am obsessive about my job, and that most people won’t find this bit of news interesting at all, but for the first time in SA history, an environmental consultant is being prosecuted (under the National Environmental Management Act) for screwing up. (about time, because screw-ups in this industry happens almost daily) The Beeld article http://www.beeld.com/Suid-Afrika/Nuus/PAP-gebou-in-vlei-Man-in-hof-20100921 tells the shortened version of the story. I happen to know this guy, and though he has been doing environmental work for a while, he is in fact a town-planner by training. No wonder he managed to overlook the wetland. I am seriously glad that our environmental laws seem to be enforced on some level nowadays, but I’m not sure what the punishment should/will be? Same with all the Rhino poachers recently nabbed. I think environmental crimes weigh very heavily, simply because I think if you piss in your own drinking water - your problem, but environmental degradation affects everybody, globally. Still, I’m not sure if a town-planner who made a very bad judgement in order to make very big bucks deserves to sit in jail for the rest of his life next to drug-dealers, murdurers and rapists. :-\
Dont they generally just post massive fines for this type of thing? Its not quite white-collar crime is it?
Section 71 (2) of the National Environmental Management Act (107 of 1998) says basically that non-compliances with the Act is punishable by a fine up to R1 million or 1 year’s imprisonment or both. (OK so, not the rest of his life, but for a one-man enviro-show this guy’s entire career is SO over)
I’m not sure how I think these people should be punished, though.
the oke should have known better, in the end, but yes, i dont think he needs to be in the chookie.
he should then spend time fixing the fuckup he’s made, like a community service type thing.