Company Announcement - The Basic Assessment process has recently been revised and is now 90 days from application to final BA Report submission for adequate service delivery, inclusive of a 30 day public consultation period. In light of this, GIBB, South Africa’s leading black-owned engineering firm, is enhancing its Environmental Services sector to meet the new environmental application process requirements of the National Development Plan, with its own in-house environmental and engineering faculty which will head up large scale infrastructure projects.

Prior to this new amendment, there was no stipulated submission time-frame and if proposals had no activity over six months, they were permanently closed. Similarly for a Scoping and Environmental Impact Reporting process, a timeframe of 150 days to the submission of a final Environmental Impact Report applies. 

“The main objectives of the revised amendments are to shorten the EIA application and review the process for all environmental applications, not exclusive to Strategic Infrastructure Projects within South Africa, and to facilitate the project development process. In order to relieve the current bottleneck within the NDP submission process, the National Environmental Management Act, (Act No. 107 of 1998) and the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) regulations were recently amended. The new timeframes, above all else, show the need for proper planning and execution,” states Tashriq Naicker, Senior Environmental Scientist, GIBB.

“Having the engineering and environmental work done in-house, allows the company to proactively manage our environmental risk as compared to other companies that outsource their environmental work. The current regulations allows for the use of both in-house environmental practitioners and specialists. Internalising the environmental scope allows for greater efficiency on a project and as such, translates into effective project management. With the new amended legislation, we can provide our clients with a holistic package of services,” comments Naicker.  

An example of this was illustrated recently when GIBB employed both its engineering and environmental sectors for the proposed bi-directional raw water pipeline from the Knellpoort Dam to the inlet works of the Welbedacht Water Treatment Works.  This allowed GIBB to abridge their service offerings to the client (Bloem Water). Communication barriers were not present as the GIBB project team had already understood the context of the project with their internal method of working, culture and practice and so, were able to deliver seamlessly and efficiently.

“The advantage of having one company engineering, undertaking the environmental impact assessment and project managing the development is cost-savings across the span of the project. Evident in the Bloem Water case; project management is smoother and more streamlined as everyone is using the same systems, referencing the same  information set and performing to equal levels of excellence demanded by the GIBB culture, ” states Naicker.