EDUCATION AND TRAINING

• The National Economic Development and Labour Council has concluded negotiations on a post-school education and training skills strategy, according to Higher Education, Science and Innovation Minister Blade Nzimande.

 

MERCHANT SHIPPING

• The purpose of draft regulations recently gazetted for public comment is to give effect to the internationally binding 2012 Cape Town Agreement, which focuses on:
  • safety on board fishing vessels, and
  • the fight against illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing.

 

WASTE MANAGEMENT

• A draft waste tyre management plan has been gazetted for public comment. Its purpose is to:
  • establish a waste tyre processing sector to:
    • reduce the negative environmental impacts of waste tyres
    • support enterprise development and job creation in ‘a circular economy’
    • expand existing waste tyre processing capacity, and
    • ‘develop monitoring systems to ensure effective reporting against targets’.

 

LEGAL AID

• According to a Government Gazette notice confirming that amendments to the legal aid manual have been tabled in Parliament, they will:
  • come into effect on 8 May, and
  • are available on the Legal Aid website.

 

WIRELESS OPEN ACCESS NETWORK (WOAN)

• Draft amendments to the 2019 policy on high demand radio frequency spectrum have been gazetted for public comment. This is noting that:
  • ‘the available spectrum for licensing on the WOAN does not meet the viability threshold … determined in the study conducted by the CSIR on behalf of the Department of Communications and Digital Technologies’, and that
  • a ‘next generations radio frequency spectrum policy ... currently being finalised for public consultations’ will seek to accommodate ‘policy objectives ... intended to be achieved by the WOAN’.

 

PRUDENTIAL AUTHORITY

• A new guidance note has been issued in the context of the ‘negative economic impact of … Covid-19’. It has implications for:
  • the distribution of dividends on ordinary shares, and
  • cash bonus payments to executive officers and ‘material risk takers’.

 

PREFERENTIAL PROCUREMENT

• The draft replacement regulations recently gazetted for public comment:
  • following last month’s Constitutional Court ruling, which
  • upheld a September 2020 Supreme Court of Appeal judgment declaring the 2017 regulations invalid.

 

INDEPENDENT REGULATORY BOARD FOR AUDITORS

• Updated registration requirements have been gazetted, informed by the relevant legislation.

 

NATIONAL INFRASTRUCTURE PLAN 2050

• The plan’s first phase focuses on:
  • energy
  • freight transport
  • water, and
  • digital infrastructure.
• The plan’s second phase is apparently a work in progress and will focus on:
  • ‘distributed infrastructure and related municipal services’, and
  • approaches intended to ‘strengthen co-ordination through district development models’.

 

CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE PROTECTION ACT

• Most sections of the Act will come into force on 30 April, according to a recently gazetted presidential proclamation.

 

Prepared by Pam Saxby