NEGOTIATING MANDATE OF THE PORTFOLIO COMMITTEE ON FINANCE AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT ON NATIONAL GAMBLING BILL[B48B –2003]
1. INTRODUCTION
The National Council of Provinces referred the National Gambling BILL[B48B-2003] to the Limpopo Legislature. The Legislature then referred it to the Portfolio Committee on Finance and Economic Development for consideration in terms of House Rule 114. The Committee having considered the Bill begs to report as follows:
2. PURPOSE OF THE BILL The Bill seeks to provide for the co-ordination of concurrent national and provincial legislature competence over matters relating to casinos, racing, gambling and wagering, and to provide for the continued regulation of those matters; for that purpose to establish certain uniform norms and standards applicable to national and provincial regulation and licensing of certain gambling activities; to provide for the creation of additional uniform norms and standards applicable throughout the Republic; to retain the National Gambling Board; to establish the National Gambling Policy Council; to repeal the National Gambling Act, 1996; and to provide for matters incidental thereto
3. CONSIDERATION OF THE BILL National Council of Provinces Permanent Delegates briefed the Committee on the above-mentioned Bill on 15 and 25 September 2003. The Committee met with the Provincial Gambling Board on 11 November 2003 to be briefed on the principle and provisions of the Bill.
4. FINDINGS The Committee found the following:
- The Bill introduces new measures to deal with Black Economic empowerment.
- It would help deal with uniformity amongst Provinces.
- There would be gambling activities voluntarily, and courtorder exclusion whereby the government can apply for a courtorder to restrict certain people from gambling activities, who are believed to be addicted to gambling.
- There would be financial implications to the Limpopo in particular because there are no gambling machine manufacturers in the Provinces but in provinces like Gauteng, therefore Limpopo - Province may loose capital because it would be supplied by manufacturers from other provinces
5. CONCERNS The Committee raised the following concerns: the fact that the new Bill establishes the National Gambling Policy Council which would be made up of the Minister of Trade and Industry, MEC’s for Economic Development and Chairpersons of both National and Provincial Boards; the fact that National Gambling Board would not have amongst its members, provincial representatives as it intended to play a supervisory role over provincial gambling board; therefore, the two issues members above may cause problems with regard to the promotion of uniform norms and standards as envisaged national council would deal with other issues of economic importance and not only matters relating to gambling.
6. RECOMMENDATIONS The Committee made the following recommendations:
- ATM’s should be removed from casinos or any other gambling institution;
- The provincial gambling board should have at least one representative in the National Gambling Policy Council.
7. NEGOTIATING MANDATE The Committee, having gone through and supported the Bill, recommends that our NCOP Permanent Delegates negotiate in support of the Bill with the above-mentioned recommendations.