COVID-19

• The adjusted disaster management regulations for lockdown level four were amended on 29 June to allow:
  • hotels, lodges, timeshare facilities, resorts, guest houses and bed-and-breakfasts to operate at full capacity in terms of rooms available for accommodation, and
  • the transportation of liquor:
    • from manufacturing plants to storage facilities, and
    • ‘from any licensed premises for safe-keeping’.

 

• A ministerial directive on school closures and related arrangements was gazetted on 29 June, requiring:
  • independent schools to close that day for ‘two weeks’
  • state-run schools to close that day until 19 July
  • ‘educators and non-teaching staff to continue with their administrative duties until 2 July’
  • school nutrition programme beneficiaries to receive food ‘until 9 July’
  • the programme to resume when schools reopen
  • mid-year senior certificate examination arrangements to proceed as planned, and
  • on 26 July, state-run schools to return to the ‘daily attendance and traditional timetabling model’.

 

• On 30 June, a Home Affairs ministerial directive was gazetted confirming announcements made the previous day in a media statement. It:
  • extends to 30 September the validity of:
    • temporary visitors’ visas issued between December 2019 and 14 March 2021 to people still in South Africa, and
    • certain asylum seeker and refugee permits
  • lists ports of entry open to travellers entering or leaving South Africa
  • prescribes the requirements to be met by each visitor, and
  • lists the Department of Home Affairs services available during adjusted lockdown level four.

 

TRANSPORT

 

• On 1 July, Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula issued a media statement on the two-year process envisaged for implementing the Administrative Adjudication of Road Traffic Offences Act nationwide.

 

ENVIRONMENT

 

• A draft data management policy for the South African atmospheric emissions licence and inventory portal has been gazetted for public comment.

 

• A draft policy position on ‘the conservation and ecologically sustainable use of elephant, lion, leopard and rhinos’ has been gazetted for public comment.

 

PROMOTION OF ACCESS TO INFORMATION ACT

 

• The Department of Justice and Constitutional Development has gazetted a notice granting certain private bodies a six-month extension to the deadline for complying with new requirements under sub-section 51(1) of the 2000 Promotion of Access to Information Act.

 

Prepared by Pam Saxby