COVID-19 STATE OF DISASTER

• The disaster management regulations have been amended to provide for a vaccine injury no-fault compensation scheme.

• On 20 April, a ministerial directive was issued:
  • on the requirements to be met when proving that an employee is entitled to benefits under the Covid-19 temporary employer/employee relief scheme
  • replacing the directive issued on 3 March
  • retrospectively effective from 16 October 2020, and
  • applicable until 15 March 2021 (the end of the period for which claims may be made).

• The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa is reviewing regulations in place since April 2020 and has gazetted a notice calling for written submissions.

• The Competition Commission has published a report on the ‘largely’ positive impact of healthcare, banking and retail property sector exemptions introduced to mitigate the ‘negative economic and social’ consequences of measures taken to curb the spread of Covid-19.

TRADE, INDUSTRY AND COMPETITION

• The department has published its first report on government’s black industrialists development and support programme.

• Draft guidelines for downstream value-adding sugar master plan stakeholders have been released for public comment.

COMMUNICATIONS

• Digital sound broadcasting regulations gazetted on 23 April are now in force.

JUSTICE

• Proposed new regulations under the 2000 Promotion of Access to Information Act:
  • have been released for public comment, and
  • once in force will align the legislation with amendments for which provision is made in section 110 of the 2013 Protection of Personal Information Act, which
    • is scheduled to be operationalised on 30 June.

ENERGY

• Proposals for raising the embedded energy generation licensing threshold from 1MW to 10MW have been released for public comment, together with a draft replacement licence exemption schedule to the 2006 Electricity Generation Act.

MINING

• Proposals for further extending a mine-related financial provisioning compliance deadline under the 1998 National Environmental Management Act have been gazetted for public comment.

GENDER-BASED VIOLENCE

• The Commission for Gender Equality has published a report on the October 2019 gender-based violence and femicide emergency response action plan’s six-month implementation process.

Prepared by Pam Saxby