Films and Publications Amendment Bill: finalisation; Social Assistance Amendment Bill: briefing

Meeting report

Films and Publications Amendment Bill
The Committee was taken through the amendments. Some additional comments made were:

Clause 27 Section 23(3)
Advocate Mongameli Kweta (Chief State Law Adviser) commented that it was his understanding that the clause was not even in the current legislation, yet this had not been queried by anyone. He wanted to know what the implication was of moving Section 23(3) to Section 6.

The Committee noted that this matter was dealt with at a previous meeting where it was decided that the section did not fit in to Clause 27. It was also decided that the Section 23(3) would be moved to Clause 21.

This section dealt with the regulatory role of the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) and not the Film and Publications Bill and therefore had to be omitted from the clause and moved elsewhere in the Bill.

Clause 29 Section 24B
Mr Kweta proposed the amendment of Subsection 1(d). The rest of the Subsection after ‘offence’ would be omitted.

He proposed that Subsection 2(b) be amended. The rest of the sentence after ‘offence’ would be omitted.

The Chief State Law Adviser proposed the omission of Subsections 3, 4 and 5.

Section 6 was also amended with the omission of the sentence after the word ‘offence’.

Voting on the Bill
The Chair asked the Committee if they agreed on the amendments.

The Committee agreed and the Chairperson asked the law advisers to take the Committee through the Bill clause by clause.

The Committee approved Clauses 1 to 40 and the Bill was adopted with the amendments.

Department of Social Development on the Social Assistance Amendment Bill [B17-2008 (Reprint)]: briefing
The Chair explained that the Department briefing to the Committee on the Bill would be viewed by the provincial legislatures via a video conference so that they could be simultaneously briefed.

There were complaints by some committee members that the programme for processing this Bill was totally unexpected and meant that all other items on their programme would have to be suspended to allow them to concentrate on this piece of legislation. This was an unfortunate situation and this programme had not been properly consented to.

One committee member mentioned that if the Committee wanted to have a video conference, they had to give the province five days’ notice.

The Chairperson read out a letter that the Chairperson of the National Council of Provinces had written to the provinces on the 16 May 2008 about the Social Assistance Amendment Bill. The letter informed the provinces that the Bill was in Parliament to enable the Department to implement the mandate given to them in the State of the Nation Address. The Department was inundated with applications for social assistance and it was in the best interest of the public that the Bill was implemented as soon as possible. The Bill allowed the Department to give pensions to men who were sixty years of age and above. It was proposed that the Department brief the Committee on the Bill on 20 May 2008 and again on the 21 May 2008 to accommodate those provinces that did not have access to video conferencing.

The Committee agreed that they should go forward with the briefing, as there were no more objections and the provinces were waiting.

The Chair stated that the Department would be briefing the Committee and the provinces the following day as well.

Unfortunately due to problems with the video conferencing equipment, the briefing could not go ahead.