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Have your say on the Electricity and Nuclear Bills

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Public comments as delivered to Parliament 

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STATEMENTS FROM CIVIL ORGANISATIONS

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In the Media

Some stakeholders in the energy sector have described the Electricity Regulation Amendment Bill as crucial legislation to reduce load shedding. The Bill was tabled in Parliament by the Minister of Mineral Resources and Energy Gwede Mantashe recently, for processing. Eskom has been implementing power cuts non-stop.

Boitumelo Kiepile, Head of Regulatory Affairs at Enel Green Power SA, spoke to eNCA.

Minister of Mineral Resources and Energy tabled the Electricity Regulation Bill in parliament yesterday to help open up the electricity market. It’s part of government plans to open up the market and bring in new players. To discuss we’re joined by Energy Analyst, Professor Sampson Mamphweli.

Government says it will complete the formal introduction of the Electricity Regulation Amendment Bill to Parliament in the next quarter. In the latest update on Operation Vulindlela, it says the bill will establish a competitive market in the electricity sector. And that while some reforms are completed, others face significant challenges. Operation Vulindlela is a joint initiative between the Presidency and the National Treasury to accelerate the implementation of structural reforms and support economic recovery.

Memorandum of Objects – Electricity Bill

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Memorandum of Objects – Nuclear Bill

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Electricity Regulation Amendment Bill

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Nuclear Regulator Amendment Bill

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Freedom of Religion SA (FOR SA)

TEMPLATE PROVIDED BY FOR SA

I strongly oppose the Prevention and Combating of Hate Crimes and Hate Speech Bill [B9B – 2018], which I believe to be unconstitutional and unnecessary, for the following reasons:

  1. The Bill violates our constitutional rights as religious persons to express our religious beliefs without fear of punishment or persecution (section 15, read with section 16). Increasingly, around the world but also in South Africa, various holy scriptures (particularly on contentious issues) are regarded as “politically incorrect” or “offensive”, allegedly causing emotional and/or social harm.
  2. I specifically oppose the Bill’s:
    1. wide definition of “harm” (in Clause 1);
    2. the failure to define “hatred” (in Clause 1); and
    3. definition of, and creation of, the crime of “hate speech” (in Clause 4).
  3. The creation of the crime of “hate speech” for saying / distributing something which could possibly be construed as “harmful”, will have certain unintended consequences, namely the criminalisation of good / well-meaning people who will be prosecuted for saying what they sincerely believe (according to their holy texts) and sent to jail.
  4. There are already sufficient existing laws dealing with “hate speech”.
  5. For all of the reasons given, I ask:
    1. For the scrapping of the “hate speech” sections from the Bill altogether;
    2. Alternatively, should the “hate speech” provisions remain part of the Bill, we ask:
      1. That “harm” be defined as: “gross emotional and psychological detriment that objectively and severely undermines the human dignity of the targeted group”; and
      2. That “hatred” be defined as: “strong and deeply-felt emotions of enmity, ill-will, detestation, malevolence and vilification against members of an identifiable group, that implies that members of that group are to be despised, scorned, denied respect and subjected to ill-treatment based on their group affiliation”.
    3. That Clause 4(2)(d) (the “religious exemption clause”) be strengthened as follows to protect:
      “expression of any religious conviction, tenet, belief, teaching, doctrine or writings, by a religious organisation or an individual, in public or in private, to the extent that such expression does not actively support, instigate, exhort, or call for extreme detestation, vilification, enmity, ill-will and malevolence that constitutes incitement to cause gross emotional and psychological harm that severely undermines the dignity of the targeted group, based on race, ethnicity, gender, religion or sexual orientation”.