COVID-19

• A notice returning South Africa to lockdown level four was gazetted on 28 June, backdated to the previous day.
• The adjusted disaster management regulations for lockdown level four have since confirmed measures announced in President Cyril Ramaphosa’s address to the nation on 27 June. Until midnight on 11 July, these include:
  • longer curfew hours (21:00 to 04:00 daily), and
  • an earlier closing time for ‘non-essential establishments’ (20:00 daily)
  • prohibitions on:
    • all gatherings except funerals and cremations (which no more than 50 people may attend)
    • the sale of alcohol for on-site and off-site consumption, and
    • travel in and out of Gauteng province other than for work, business, commercial or in-transit purposes.
  • They also require:
    • all schools to have closed by the end of the week
    • the suspension of ‘contact classes’ at tertiary institutions from 1 July
    • ‘limited’ access to these institutions (although residences will remain open), and
    • employers to ‘allow their staff to work from home wherever possible’ and to ‘postpone all non-essential travel and workplace gatherings’, and
  • they restrict visits to old age homes, care facilities and other ‘congregant settings’.

 

ECONOMY

 

• Proposals for a two-year extension to the 2013 ferrous and non-ferrous waste and scrap metal preferential pricing policy directive have been gazetted for public comment. This is noting:
  • recommendations in terms of the recently published steel sector master plan, and
  • the new import duty on scrap metal, which the extension would augment.

 

LABOUR

 

• Draft amendments to the maritime occupational health and safety regulations have been gazetted for public comment. Once in force, among other things they will require every employer to:
  • establish a health and safety committee, and
  • identify a health and safety appointee for ‘every shift worked on a vessel’.

ENVIRONMENT

 

• Norms and standards for organic waste composting and other treatment have been gazetted but are not yet in force.

 

• Proposals for excluding organic waste composting and other treatments from certain lists of waste management activities impacting detrimentally on the environment have been gazetted for public comment.

 

• Draft guidelines for involving climate change specialists in the process of conducting environmental impact assessments have been gazetted for public comment.

 

• Draft biodiversity management plans for the aloe and honeybush have been gazetted for public comment.

 

PROTECTION OF PERSONAL INFORMATION ACT

 

• The Information Regulator has issued a media statement confirming that:
  • ‘there will be no deadline for the registration of information officers and deputy information officers’
  • ‘no responsible party will be held liable for not registering by 30 June 2021’, and that
  • ‘the registration of a CEO as an information officer for multiple legal entities has been taken into consideration and it will be permissible’.

 

Prepared by Pam Saxby