NATIONAL YOUTH DEVELOPMENT AGENCY AMENDMENT ACT

• A presidential proclamation was gazetted announcing the Act’s retrospective commencement on 18 September 2024. According to a Presidency media statement issued when the Bill concerned was signed into law, the new Act:
  • ‘narrows’ 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
  • empowers 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
  • strengthens governance.

 

NATIONAL SMALL ENTERPRISE DEVELOPMENT AMENDMENT ACT

• A presidential proclamation was gazetted announcing that:
  • on 1 October 2024 most sections of the amendment Act will come into effect (among other things formally establishing a Small Enterprise Development Finance Agency)
  • on 1 December 2024 provisions disestablishing the following agencies will come into force:
    • the Small Enterprise Financing Agency
    • the Co-operative Banks Development Agency, and
    • the Small Enterprise Development Agency, and that
  • the following sections are on hold:
    • those dealing with dispute resolution, including provisions:

• introducing a small enterprise ombud service, and
• enabling the Minister to prohibit or declare as unfair trading practices those found to impact negatively on small enterprises, and

• provisions repealing a schedule to the principal statute prescribing thresholds for defining enterprise size classes by sector.

 

CONSERVATION

• SanParks launched Vision 2040, which:
  • sets out ‘pathways to the future of conservation’
  • represents the next step in a ‘shift’ from ‘islands of conservation’ excluding people to ‘expansive, connected stretches of land … where both nature and people thrive’,
  • is underpinned by the 2015-2025 National Biodiversity Strategy & Action Plan, and
  • according to a speech delivered at the launch by Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment Deputy Minister Narend Singh:
    • promotes social justice and inclusivity by seeking to ensure that ‘all communities, particularly the disadvantaged and marginalised, … have fair access to opportunities and resources and that conservation is a catalyst for growth, … prosperity and the betterment of people’s livelihoods’, and
    • is part of South Africa’s ‘deliberate contribution’ towards meeting the 23 action-oriented global decadal targets set in 2020 at the UN’s Kunming Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework Convention.

 

LAND REFORM

• The Department of Land Reform and Rural Development gazetted a notice extending the applicability of the 1996 Interim Protection of Informal Land Rights Act for another year.
• According to a presentation document considered during a meeting of the National Assembly’s Land Reform and Rural Development Committee on 21 August 2024, a Communal Land Bill seeking to address the issues concerned is only expected to be tabled in Parliament in 2026. It is expected to:

• ‘regulate communal land … occupied and controlled by communities in the former homelands’
• transfer communal land held in trust by organs of state to the communities occupying it, and
• enable those communities to ‘administer’ this land themselves.

 

COMMUNICATIONS

• The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa gazetted draft mail conveyance replacement regulations for public comment. Emerging from a review of the prevailing regulations begun in 2023, among other things the proposed new regulations cover:

• the general powers and duties of conveyors
• the legal possession and ownership of mail
• insurance against loss or damage
• liability and compensation for loss or damage
• the security of mail
• rebate for the delayed delivery of express mail
• data security
• the conveyance of dangerous and prohibited goods, and
• disaster management.

 

SCRAP METAL EXPORTS

• The International Trade Administration Commission gazetted a notice announcing a review of its ferrous and non-ferrous waste and scrap export control guidelines, and calling for public comments. This is with the aim of determining the overall effectiveness and efficiency of the price preference system, and how it might be improved.
• Scrap metal exports have been regulated since 2013 in an effort to ensure ‘an affordable domestic supply of quality scrap metal … to the domestic processing industry, to safeguard employment and … maintain and increase industrial capacity’.
• The policy measures were temporarily suspended in June 2022, since when the suspension has been extended at six-monthly intervals – most recently to December 2023. That month, a notice was gazetted calling for public comment on a possible further extension, although it is not clear what eventually transpired.

 

TOURISM

• The Department of Tourism gazetted a draft astro tourism strategy and implementation plan for public comment following the document’s recent approval by Cabinet. Among other things, the draft strategy’s executive summary refers to three ‘pillars’ around which it will be implemented, monitored and evaluated:

• ‘indigenous celestial narratives’ and associated ‘human capacity development’ interventions
• infrastructure development (related to which the draft strategy mentions support for dark sky conservation and light pollution awareness campaigns), and
• ‘inclusive tourism growth and partnerships’.

 

Prepared by Pam Saxby