TWO MORE CONTROVERSIAL BILLS HEAD TO NCOP

TWO MORE CONTROVERSIAL BILLS HEAD TO NCOP

• 27 October 2023
• Parliament
• SA Legal Academy

The National Assembly has passed ‘B’ versions of the Basic Education Laws Amendment (BELA) Bill and the Upstream Petroleum Resources Development Bill, which have been sent to the NCOP for concurrence. Party political positions on each Bill are reflected in minutes of the plenary sitting at which they were passed – pointing to serious concerns about their contents in some circles.

A  media statement announcing the completion of the National Assembly leg of each Bill's passage through Parliament notes, among other things, that, once enacted and operationalised, the BELA Bill will:

• make Grade R ‘the new compulsory school-starting age’
• penalise corporal punishment at schools
• require the language policy of a government school to ‘take into consideration the language needs of the broader community’, and
• lay the foundation for more strictly regulating liquor possession, sale and consumption on government school premises.

The statement overlooks provisions in the Bill making it mandatory to register any learner receiving home schooling, which was nevertheless mentioned in a speech delivered by Basic Education Deputy Minister Reginah Mhaule during the Bill’s second reading in the National Assembly. The Deputy Minister also referred to provisions in the Bill:

• introducing ‘financial and public accountability frameworks for governing bodies and provincial departments', and
• improving the admissions policy implementation system affecting undocumented learners. 

According to the same parliamentary media statement, once enacted and in force the Upstream Petroleum Resources Development Bill will:

• ‘separate’ petroleum provisions in the Mineral & Petroleum Resources Development Act, 2002, from mineral provisions, and
• facilitate the petroleum industry’s ‘economic transformation’ by
  • ‘enhanc(ing) the participation of black persons and the state in the upstream petroleum industry’, and
  • ‘promot(ing) petroleum resource development in a sustainable and equitable manner for the benefit of all South Africans’.

In a separate media statement, National Assembly Mineral Resources & Energy Committee chair Sahlulele Luzipo provided more details, noting that the Bill provides for:

• the establishment of ‘a national state-owned company as an entity responsible for managing the state’s participation at 20% carried interest in all petroleum rights’, and
• the Petroleum Agency of South Africa’s designation as regulatory authority for the upstream petroleum sector.

Please click the links below for more information:

• Basic Education Laws Amendment Bill’s ‘B’ version
• Bill’s ‘B’ version
• parliamentary media statement
• minutes
• Basic Education Deputy Minister Reginah Mhaule’s speech
• committee media statement on the Upstream Petroleum Resources Development Bill

Published by SA Legal Academy Policy Watch

0 COMMENTS

LEAVE A COMMENT