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STATE OF THE NATION ADDRESS: TWO KEY BILLS, THREE POLICY DEVEOPMENTS
- 06 February 2025
- Parliament
- SA Legal Academy
According to the official version of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s 2025/26 State of the Nation address, two key Bills will be tabled in Parliament within the next 12 months and three important policies finalised. They are:
- a Whistleblower Protection Bill
- a Water Services Amendment Bill
- ‘a modernised and comprehensive industrial policy that drives economic growth’
- ‘an enabling policy and regulatory framework for critical minerals’, and
- a national policy with norms, standards and regulations to ‘support the implementation of the Basic Education Laws Amendment Act’ (on which SA Legal Academy has regularly reported).
The speech provides no detail on either Bill.
However, in June 2023 the Department of Justice & Constitutional Development called for input on a discussion document exploring reforms to the prevailing legislative framework on whistleblowing. It included a table of possible amendments to the 2000 Protected Disclosures Act and 1998 Witness Protection Act, as SA Legal Academy reported at the time. A link to that report is provided below.
A draft Water Services Amendment Bill released in November 2023 for public comment sought, among other things, to:
- address gaps in existing regulations on ‘safely managed sanitation’
- improve the quality of potable/drinking water
- improve ‘the accountability of water services providers’ by way of operating licence requirements
- make registration mandatory for persons installing and operating water service works, and
- strengthen water board governance.
A link to SA Legal Academy’s report on this piece of proposed new legislation is provided below.
Please click the following links for more details:
- President’s speech
- SA Legal Academy report on whistleblower protection discussion document
- SA Legal Academy report on draft Water Services Amendment Bill
- SA Legal Academy report on Basic Education Laws Amendment Act
Published by SA Legal Academy Policy Watch
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