NEW LEGISLATION

• The Presidency issued a media statement announcing that the South African National Water Resources Infrastructure Agency SOC Ltd Bill has been signed into law. At the time of writing, the new Act had not yet been gazetted. However, once in force it will:
  • establish the agency as a state-owned company responsible for:
    •  infrastructure management and development
    • mobilising finance for new projects, and
    • ensuring that the value of water resources infrastructure as a ‘national asset’ is ‘effectively maintained and sustained in order to minimise the risk to end-users’.
• The National Youth Development Agency Amendment Bill was also signed into law. Although at the time of writing the Act itself was not available, according to a Presidency media statement once in force it will:

• ‘narrow’ the agency’s objectives to facilitate the more effective implementation of fundable programmes, where necessary with the assistance and support of other organs of state
• empower the agency to refocus its operations at a ‘functional’ level on:
  • national youth service
  • economic transformation
  • job creation
  • entrepreneurial support and
  • interventions assisting young people to find employment, and
• strengthen governance.

 

PRESIDENTIAL HEALTH COMPACT

• The Department of Health published the recently signed second Presidential Health Compact. Entitled, ‘Accelerating health system strengthening and national health insurance (NHI) implementation’, the compact was informed by discussions at a May 2023 national health summit. Among other things, its preamble notes that:
  • ‘South Africa has chosen NHI as its pathway to universal health coverage’
  • having been signed into law, the NHI Act, 2023, provides ‘the required legal framework’
  • ‘anchored in the primary health care philosophy’, NHI is more than a health system funding model
  • NHI will facilitate equitable access to quality and effective healthcare service delivery and management, transforming the health system, and that
  • government and all other healthcare stakeholders have ‘a common interest’ in enabling NHI implementation by way of
    • ‘other policy reforms’
    • ‘strategic partnerships’
    • ‘meaningful collaboration’
    • ‘innovative approaches’, and
    • ongoing consultation.

 

STATE OWNED ENTERPRISES

• The Presidency issued a media statement announcing the publication of a proclamation assigning the shareholder responsibility for state-owned enterprises to various line-function ministries. This is in keeping with plans to which President Cyril Ramaphosa referred briefly in his 30 June 2024 speech on government of national unity Cabinet appointments.
• Pending the transfer of Department of Public Enterprises human and financial resources elsewhere, Minister in the Presidency responsible for Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation, Maropene Ramokgopa, will:
  • serve as its executive authority, and
  • assume responsibility for ensuring that the National State Enterprise Bill now before Parliament is finalised.

 

CHILDREN’S ACT

• The Portfolio Committee on Social Development issued a media statement announcing that the Department of Social Development will draft a Children’s Amendment Bill to address issues in clauses removed from the 2020 Bill by the previous Parliament. Focusing on foster care, the 2020 Bill has since been enacted and is mostly in force. Some of the issues yet to be addressed ‘require extensive policy development’ in the light of matters arising after the original drafting process. They include:

• the ‘safe abandonment of children’
• corporal punishment
• the rights of unmarried fathers, and
• children’s right to privacy on digital platforms.

 

AIR QUALITY MANAGEMENT

• The Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment gazetted regulations on air quality management plan enforcement and implementation in approved priority areas. Immediately in force, the regulations:
  • repeal those in place for the Vaal Triangle since the May 2009
  • apply to various stakeholders, including:
    • the holder of a mining-related prospecting, exploration or production right or permit
    • anyone conducting a listed activity
    • anyone operating a controlled emitter, and
    • anyone conducting reclamation activities, and
  • among other things cover:

• emission reduction targets and related management planning
• reporting requirements, and
• plan implementation funding and other resources.

 

ENERGY

• On 16 August 2024, the Department of Mineral Resource and Energy issued a media statement announcing the withdrawal of a 26 January 2024 Government Gazette notice on the imminent commencement of the 2019 Integrated Resource Plan’s new nuclear energy generation capacity procurement process. According to the statement, Electricity Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa ‘will direct a process that affirms and asserts procedural fairness and draws from the rich body of knowledge of industry experts and communities in shaping a submission to the regulator’.

 

Prepared by Pam Saxby