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PREAMBLE

RECOGNISING that National Government is responsible for and has authority over the nation’s water resources and its use;

ACKNOWLEDGING

  • that it is necessary to ensure that, in relation to water resources development at national level, the required national water resources infrastructure must be developed, operated and maintained efficiently and effectively in a sustainable, equitable and reliable manner in order to make water available to water users and to water management institutions for further distribution;
  • that the current water resources infrastructure asset base and associated revenue stream could be better utilised to procure funding for the development, operation and maintenance of water resources infrastructure required for meeting social needs; and RECOGNISING that a juristic person wholly owned by the State to administer, fund, finance, implement, develop, alter, maintain, rehabilitate, refurbish, operate and manage the national water resources infrastructure, to provide advisory services relating to such infrastructure and to do all things necessary to fulfil the functions entrusted to it under this Act, must be established to meet the obligations as set out in sections 10, 11, 24, 27(1)(b) and 27(2) of the Constitution in relation to water,

ARRANGEMENT OF SECTIONS

CHAPTER 1
DEFINITIONS AND PURPOSE
1. Definitions and interpretation
2. Purpose of Act

CHAPTER 2
ESTABLISHMENT OF AGENCY
3. Establishment of Agency
4. Memorandum and Notice of incorporation of Agency
5. Application of Companies Act to Agency
6. Objects of Agency
7. Functions of Agency

CHAPTER 3
GOVERNANCE OF AGENCY
8. Governance and composition of Board
9. Role of Board
10. Principle to guide Board
11. Appointment to Board
12. Chairperson and deputy chairperson
13. Terms of office and conditions of appointment of non-executive Board members
14. Removal and disqualification of Board members
15. Filling of vacancies
16. Shareholder’s compact
17. Establishment of committees
18. Fiduciary duties of Board members
19. Disclosure of interest of Board members
20. Recovery of improper profits
21. Validity of decisions
22. Delegation of powers and assignment of functions by Board
23. Meetings of Board

CHAPTER 4
CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER AND CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER
24. Appointment of Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer
25. Terms of office and conditions of appointment of Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer
26. Appointment of acting Chief Executive Officer and acting Chief Financial Officer
27. Interim Chief Executive Officer
28. Suspension from office of Chief Executive Officer
29. Delegation by Chief Executive Officer
30. Appointment of employees

CHAPTER 5
FINANCIAL MATTERS, REPORTING AND ACCOUNTABILITY
31. Financing
32. Government support to Agency and loans by Agency and subsidiaries
33. Annual budget, long term financial plan and corporate plan
34. Submission of quarterly reports and corporate plans
35. Financial statements and annual report
36. Application of Public Finance Management Act to Agency
37. Board to notify Minister of significant events

CHAPTER 6
TRANSFER OF NATIONAL WATER RESOURCES INFRASTRUCTURE AND DISESTABLISHMENT OF TCTA
38. Transfer of national water resources infrastructure
39. Disestablishment of TCTA
40. Registering of real rights
41. Transfer of personal servitudes
42. Disposal and transfer of national water resources infrastructure
43. Acquiring State land

CHAPTER 7
POWERS OF MINISTER
44. Delegation by Minister
45. Additional functions
46. Expropriation by Minister
47. Investigation of Agency
48. Intervention by Minister
49. Regulations

CHAPTER 8
MISCELLANEOUS PROVISIONS
50. Subsidiary company
51. Liquidation
52. Documents relating to litigation against Agency
53. Transitional provisions and savings
54. Offences and penalties
55. Short title and commencement

STATEMENTS FROM OTHER ORGANISATIONS

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Cape Independence Advocacy Group

Dear Speaker,

I am writing to you on behalf of the Cape Independence Advocacy Group (CIAG) and the seventy thousand South Africans who actively follow our work.

We wish to comment on the ‘Electoral Commissions Amendment Act, 2021’, which is proposed by the Democratic Alliance (DA) and was published in the Government Gazette on 21 June 2021.

Given our mandate, our comments are made in the context of the Western Cape, although we appreciate and respect that the constitutional rights enacted through this bill will rightfully apply to all provinces.

This bill is essential to restoring some degree of functional democracy to the voters of the Western Cape and we therefore unreservedly and wholeheartedly endorse it.

Through their voting behaviour, Western Cape voters have made it abundantly clear that they do not endorse many of the policy and ideological positions of the South African national government, but are left utterly powerless to resist them because the voters in other South African provinces, who greatly outnumber them, hold starkly different ideological and political opinions.

In terms of seeing their democratic will enacted, for the majority of Western Cape voters, the democratic era has not offered much of an improvement over the apartheid era. It is a statistical fact that, since 1994, the majority of Western Cape voters have never been governed by the political party they voted for, and they have no foreseeable prospect of ever being governed by the party they vote for. As such, they cannot be said to have functional democracy.

One of the few glimmers of democratic hope Western Cape voters do have, is the provision of Clause 127(2)(f) of the national constitution, and 37(2)(f) of the Western Cape constitution, which allows them, at the discretion of the premier who they elected, to have their voices heard on matters which are important to them, without being drowned out by a national majority who fundamentally hold different views.

To deny Western Cape voters this constitutional right would be a very serious infringement of their political rights and freedoms, and would be a clear indication that parliament and the national government are not interested in the constitutional rights and democratic wishes of Western Cape voters.

We therefore call upon parliament to pass this bill at the earliest opportunity, and without objection.

Yours Faithfully

Phil Craig
(On behalf of the Cape Independence Advocacy Group)