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MERCHANT SHIPPING BILL, 2023: CABINET APPROVES WITHDRAWAL FROM PARLIAMENT
- 16 October 2025
- Transport
- SA Legal Academy
Cabinet has approved the withdrawal of a Merchant Shipping Bill tabled in Parliament in May 2023 with the intention of reviving the ‘merchant shipping component’ of South Africa’s maritime industry. Had the Bill been passed, enacted and operationalised, it would have repealed the 1951 Merchant Shipping Act – replacing it with legislation aligned with the requirements of International Maritime Organisation conventions to which South Africa is party.
According to a media statement on the Cabinet meeting at which the Bill’s withdrawal was approved, the Department of Transport will now have more time to ‘finalise’ a National Economic Development & Labour Council (NEDLAC) ‘process’ that should have been initiated before the Bill was tabled. Parliamentary Monitoring Group (PMG) records tend to suggest that this process may only have begun recently, prompted by input from the Congress of South African Trade Unons duing parliamentary hearings in March 2025.
Among other things, a PMG report on the 20 May 2025 National Assembly Transport Committee meeting at which this was discussed noted that:
- section 5 of the 1994 NEDLAC Act requires any department to submit draft policy or legislation relating to social, economic or labour market issues to submit it to the Council for consideration, while
- section 8 requires NEDLAC to submit a report on that process to Parliament, via the Minister.
At the time, the committee’s intention was to continue processing the Bill in tandem with the NEDLAC process. It is not clear why this approach was not pursued.
- Cabinet media statement
- Bill (to be withdrawn)
Published by SA Legal Academy Policy Watch
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