ELECTRICITY REGULATION AMENDMENT BILL: STATUS CLARIFIED

ELECTRICITY REGULATION AMENDMENT BILL: STATUS CLARIFIED

• 17 August 2023
• Parliament
• SA Legal Academy

The Department of Mineral Resources & Energy has issued a media statement on the status of a draft Electricity Regulation Amendment Bill submitted to Parliament in July 2023. The statement refers expressly to a Business Day article published on 16 August 2023 following a meeting of the National Assembly’s Mineral Resources & Energy Committee. The article’s byline blames Minister Gwede Mantashe for what is described as an ‘inexplicable delay’ in formally introducing the Bill.

According to the media statement, ‘the version submitted to Parliament is the same version that was approved by Cabinet in March 2023’. This is nevertheless noting that ‘on 5 May 2023, Parliament requested the … (department) to re-submit the Bill to the Office of Chief State Law Advisor … for final certification following additional inputs from Operation Vulindlela and National Treasury’.

The certified version was ‘transmitted to Parliament’ on 15 August 2023.

A Parliamentary Monitoring Group sound recording of the 16 August 2023 committee meeting throws more light on the matter. Apparently, the draft Bill ‘never made its way to the committee’. This is bearing in mind that, in terms of Joint Rule 159, a draft Bill is submitted to Parliament for information and planning purposes only. It may not be processed until certified and formally tabled.

Explaining this to the committee, parliamentary legal adviser Frank Jenkins appeared to be suggesting that the delay to which the Business Day article referred was an administrative blunder. It is still not clear if the mistake was made by the department or Parliament.

At the time of writing, the certified Bill had yet to be published. An electronic version of the draft submitted to Parliament in July is still not electronically available. However, as SA Legal Academy has already reported, the Bill’s purpose is to:

• strengthen provisions in the Act for licensable and exempted activities
• provide for the transitional measures required in creating a ‘transmission system operator’, and
• define its functions, which will include:
  • establishing a multi-market electricity trading platform, and
  • facilitating ‘access to the transmission network on a non-discriminatory basis’.

Please click the links below to access the documents:

• media statement
• Business Day article
• joint rules

Published by SA Legal Academy Policy Watch

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