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Dear Colleagues,
Unfortunately I am the bearer of fairly bad news
in the form of PAIA.
"The Promotion of Access to Information Act (PAIA) was
formulated to give effect to the right of access to
information as enshrined in the Constitution. Its
intention is to foster a culture of transparency and
accountability in public and private bodies by giving effect
to the right of access to information.......", or so the
Eskom manual, available online tells me. Basically
what that means is we have to state what records
we keep regarding our business and how the public
may request access to these records and what their
recourse to action is if you deny them access and
submit all of that information to the
SAHRC........if I understand the requirements correctly.
I am not an expert on PAIA by any stretch of the
imagination, however, I will share the information I
have managed to glean to far with you as this
affects all of you. Listening to discussions on the
radio and following the social networks, I gather
that everyone, hawkers, garage-operations, doctors,
internet traders, flea market traders, everyone needs
to submit a manual of their business operations to
the South African Human Resources Commission (SAHRC)
by the 31st of December.
According to the SAHRC website :
"The legislation defines private bodies (juristic persons) as:
a) A natural person who carries or has carried on any
trade, business or profession, but only in such capacity
b) A partnership which carries or has carried on any
trade, business or profession or
c) Any former or existing juristic person, but excludes a
public body
Juristic persons will therefore include close corporations,
non-profit organizations and trusts.
Please also note that holding companies and each of their
entities or subsidiaries must submit separate manuals for
each entity respectively.
In terms of section 51 of PAIA, the head of a private body
must :
compile a section 51 manual which is a road map of the company
submit the manual to the South African Human Rights Commission
effect material changes if any each time these occur and
resubmit to the SAHRC, electronic submissions to the
Commission are accepted, sent to [email protected]
thereafter followed by hard copy originals; manuals must be
submitted to SAHRC head office at the address listed below
update any material changes on the manual on a regular basis;
make the manual available as prescribed by the Act at the
company offices and on their website;
must annex a request form to the manual and also make
request form available on the website and at the company
premises access points;
there are penalties for non compliance -- please see section
90 of PAIA, the Commission has not imposed fines for non
compliance to date but reserves the right to do.
The manual must among others contain the following information :
details of the company's postal, email and street address,
fax and phone of the company,
the description of available records generated by the
company stating those which are automatically available and
those that are available on request.
outline the request procedure in terms of PAIA;
state who the head of the company is (CEO is usually the
Information Officer in terms of PAIA)
stipulate the fees applicable as legislated by the Act which
are chargeable to "requesters"
remedies available to requesters if their request for
information has been refused
details facilitating request for access to a record etc. "
NO FEES are payable to the Commission for submission of your
manual.
Apparently this legislation was signed into being in
2005 by Brigitte Mabandla. Public companies have
already complied and exemptions to private bodies
were extended until 31st of December 2011. The
exemption period is about to expire and each of us
has to make a submission to the SAHRC.
Examples of these manuals submitted by public
companies can be found on the web. I manged to
find, Virginactive, Truworths & Eskom.
The example from the SAHRC for a manual to be
submitted from a private body is at this address :
http://www.sahrc.org.za/home/21/files/Useful%20pointers%20to%20compiling%20a%20section%2051%20guide.pdf
So far the imposition of penalties in terms of PAIA have
not been acted on by any party, however, there has not
been any discussion so far about a further
extension of the deadline. If I remember correctly,
fines could be up to R15 000 for failure to
submit.........however, I could be mistaken here & so
far no one has be fined.
Further information as to the manual can be found
on the SAHRC website :
http://www.sahrc.org.za/home/index.php?ipkContentID=70&ipkMenuID=51
Bruce Whitfield, from Radio 702 interviewed someone
from the SAHRC tonight regarding these submissions. I
gather that the interview will be podcast. Keep
watching this page :
http://www.702.co.za/podcast/podcast_TheWorldatSix.asp
The podcast should be available tomorrow and if
anyone has trouble finding it, I will assist you.
Addresses and phone numbers for the SAHRC are as
follows :
For all queries from the 19th December 2011 until the 21st
December 2011 please contact Schalk Van Rensburg -
011 877 3642
[email protected]
David Malesa - 011 877 3678
[email protected]
For all queries from the 22rd December 2011 until the 23rd
December 2011 please contact Foaad Moola - 011
877 3769
[email protected]
For all queries on the 3rd January 2012 please contact Foaad
Moola - 011 877 3769
[email protected]
For all queries from the 4th January 2012 please contact
Foaad Moola - 011 877 3769
[email protected]
Schalk Van Rensburg - 011 877 3642
[email protected]
David Malesa - 011 877 3678
[email protected]
PLEASE TAKE NOTE THE COMMISSION WILL BE CLOSED FROM THE 27th
of December 2011 to the 2nd of January 2012. The Commission
will reopen from the 3rd of January 2012
I have a headache just thinking about this. I will
try to assist or answer as many queries as I can,
however, I am really not an expert in this field.
This has taken me completely by surprise.
--
Regards
Meredith Kempthorne (Chairperson, Southern African Book
Dealers Association)
*Tall Stories* -
Fine Books For Discerning People
Member of the Southern African Book Dealers Association
Shop 12
Irene Village Mall
Cnr. Nellmapius and Pierre van Reyneveld
Irene
Tel : 27 (0)12 662 2829
e-mail : [email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>Websites :
Http://tallstoriesbookshop.com
<http://www.tallstoriesbookshop.com/> *
Southern African Book Dealers Association :
*http://bookbase.com/sabda/search?dealerId=1253
<http://www.sabda.co.za/>
<http://www.sabda.co.za/>
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