Rural Development and Land Reform General Amendment Bill [B33-2010]: departmental briefing & consideration

Meeting report

Rural Development and Land Reform General Amendment Bill, 2010
Dr R Bester, Legislation Specialist: Department of Rural Development and Land Reform, undertook the briefing. He noted that in terms of Proclamation No.44 of 1 July 2009, the President had transferred the administration, powers and functions of specified legislation to the Minister of Rural Development and Land Reform. A total of 28 Acts were so specified. The definitions of “Minister” in these Acts were outdated as they still referred to the Minister of Land Affairs, the Minister of Regional and Land Affairs, the Minister for Agriculture and Land Affairs and the Minister “responsible for the planning profession”. Similarly, the definitions of “Department” and “Director-General” were also outdated in most instances. In order to ensure legal certainty in respect of which Minister and Department were responsible for the administration of these Acts, the Bill contained various clauses aimed at amending the relevant definitions appropriately. Where necessary, relevant expressions within the Acts were also to be amended to reflect the correct Minister, Department or Director-General. There were few references to other Ministers and Departments in these Acts and it was proposed to also amend those references appropriately. There were references to the Minister of National Education now referred to as the Minister of Higher Education and Training, the Minister of Agriculture now the Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries and the Minister for Provincial Affairs and Constitutional Development now referred to as the Minister for Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs. The relevant Departments were consulted and indicated their support for the proposed amendments. An explanatory summary of the Bill was published in Gazette No 33500 of the 3 September 2010. Requests for copies of the Bill were received from the Buffalo City Municipality, the Democratic Alliance, AgriSA and Mostert Opperman Inc (a law firm). However no comments on the Bill were submitted to the Department. All the amendments proposed in the Bill were purely of a technical nature and were not substantive. The proposed amendments had no financial or constitutional implications and did not affect any customary law or the customs of traditional communities.

Discussion
The Chairperson noted that the Bill was a section 75 bill. It held no financial or constitutional implications. The Bill was correcting references to Ministers, Director-Generals and Departments as they were currently known to be.

Ms N Ntwanambi (ANC, Western Cape) noted that the aim of the Bill was realignment. She was in agreement with what the Bill intended to do.

Mr G Mokgoro (ANC, Northern Cape) agreed with what the Bill was trying to achieve. He noted that the Department was new and had a strategic role to play and asked whether it was fully staffed as it should be and whether it was functioning at full capacity.

Dr Bester replied that the Department was fairly new and was embarking on restructuring itself. He preferred to defer the answering of the questions asked by Mr Mokgoro to the Director General (DG) for answering when the DG appeared before the Committee.

The Chairperson asked the Committee if there were any objections by members to finalising the Bill.

There were no objections.

The Committee unanimously adopted the Bill unamended.

The meeting was adjourned.