South Africa’s Parliament is predicted to take care of a number of necessary items of laws in 2022, together with points round land expropriation and healthcare.
Knowledge supplied by the Parliamentary Monitoring Group (PMG) reveals that 37 payments are at present earlier than parliamentary committees, 33 with the Nationwide Meeting and 4 with the Nationwide Council of Provinces.
A complete of 21 payments have been handed in 2021 – three fewer than in 2020. Out of those payments, 9 have been cash payments linked to the primary and supplementary budgets.
A number of the vital payments set to be thought-about in 2022 are outlined in additional element under.
Nationwide Well being Insurance coverage
The Portfolio Committee on Well being is at present processing the Nationwide Well being Insurance coverage Invoice, the primary piece of enabling laws for the federal government’s ambition to implement common well being protection. The invoice was launched to Parliament in August 2019, and all through 2021, a complete of twenty-two public hearings have been held.
The National Health Insurance (NHI) is a well being financing system designed to pool funds to supply entry to high quality inexpensive private well being providers for all South Africans primarily based on their well being wants, regardless of their socio-economic standing.
NHI seeks to grasp common well being protection for all. Which means that each South African could have a proper to entry complete healthcare providers freed from cost on the level of use at accredited well being services comparable to clinics, hospitals and personal well being practitioners. This will probably be carried out utilizing an NHI card. The providers will probably be delivered closest to the place individuals dwell or work.
Whereas the system was first mooted way back to 2012, the Nationwide Treasury doesn’t count on South Africa’s Nationwide Well being Insurance coverage to be a major value strain within the medium time period, with the scheme’s deliberate implementation progressing at a glacial tempo.
In its Medium Time period Finances Coverage Assertion (MTBPS), Treasury mentioned {that a} restricted costing of the nationwide medical insurance coverage proposal has beforehand proven that it might require about R40 billion yearly in extra funding within the first 5 years and sure significantly extra over time.
“At current, nonetheless, there’s inadequate capability within the well being sector to work substantively on nationwide medical insurance. The nationwide medical insurance oblique grant has been underspent, the Nationwide Well being Insurance coverage Fund has not but been established, and the Nationwide Well being Insurance coverage Invoice nonetheless must be handed by parliament.
“It’s due to this fact unlikely that nationwide medical insurance will probably be a major value strain within the medium time period,” it mentioned.
Land Expropriation
After present process a number of revisions, the Expropriation Invoice has continued to make headway within the Nationwide Meeting legislative pipeline. Launched to Parliament in October 2020, the invoice spent most of 2020 present process a public session course of.
Notably, this invoice is separate from the deliberate part 25 Constitutional change, which did not cross in parliament on the finish of 2020.
It units out the potential of expropriation with nil compensation in instances the place:
- The land has been deserted,
- The land is a well being and security danger,
- The land is held for speculative functions
- It’s state-owned land.
As in 2021, the problem of land expropriation with out compensation is prone to be a key concern for lawmakers in 2022, though it stays to be seen whether or not a Constitutional change or laws amendments will finally be crucial.
Employment Fairness
Parliament’s Nationwide Meeting handed the Employment Fairness Modification Invoice in November 2021 and has despatched the draft legislation to the Nationwide Council of Provinces for concurrence.
The invoice will enable the Employment and Labour minister Thulas Nxesi to set employment fairness targets for various enterprise sectors. The minister can set targets for various occupational ranges, sub-sectors or areas.
It additionally goals to scale back the regulatory burden on small companies and add guidelines for doing enterprise with the federal government.
The Division of Employment and Labour has beforehand indicated that it plans to introduce the brand new sector-specific fairness guidelines in 2022.
“The anticipated introduction of five-year sector targets will mark the start of a clear slate,” mentioned the division’s director of employment fairness Ntsoaki Mamashela mentioned in September.
“All present employment fairness plans will fall away on 22 September 2022, and the brand new plans must be aligned with five-year targets. Self-regulation has not labored,” she mentioned.
Hashish
The Hashish for Personal Functions Invoice is at present making its approach via parliament following its introduction in September 2020.
The invoice outlines possession guidelines for hashish customers at residence and individuals who want to domesticate the plant. It additionally introduces new offences and provisions for individuals who beforehand obtained a felony file for hashish possession.
The draft invoice states that an grownup particular person might for private use:
- Possess the prescribed amount of hashish plant cultivation materials;
- Domesticate the prescribed amount of hashish vegetation in a personal place;
- Possess in personal the prescribed amount of hashish in a public place;
- Possess the prescribed amount of hashish in a personal place;
- Possess in personal the prescribed amount of hashish vegetation in a public place.
The invoice defines a ‘personal place’ as anywhere, together with a constructing, home, room, shed, hut, tent, cell residence, caravan, boat or land or any portion thereof, to which the general public doesn’t have entry as of proper.
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