COMMENTS ON THE DRAFT ENERGY REGULATOR BILL

Whilst Sasol Gas’s preference of a free standing independent Gas Regulator is well known, Sasol Gas has accepted the principle of one Energy Regulatory body for the country. Sasol gas has noted the structuring of this body with three (3) full-time and five (5) part-time members and the role of the CEO and that of the staff of the Regulator.

 There is however a couple of areas where we feel either clarity or amendments may be required.

  1. Section 5: Composition of the Regulator.
  2. It is our understanding that this Section has the aim of separating the chairmanship of the Energy Regulator from the day to day operations by amongst other things, assigning three (3) fulltime-members full time, and providing that the chairperson comes from amongst the five (5) part-time members.

    In our view a contradiction arise from Section 5(4) which outlines the procedure to be followed in the absence of the chairperson designated by the Minister. In this case the Bill does not clearly stipulate that the presiding chairperson must be chosen from among the part-time members. This may lead to a full-time member being chosen as chairperson for a particular meeting. This procedure is seemingly inconsistent with the intention of the Bill as reflected in Section 5(3).

  3. Section 13: Accounting by Energy Regulator.

This Section provides for three separate accounts; which indicates that the legislator intends to avoid cross-subsidisation of the different sectors and to provide for the monitoring of income and expenditure through the individual accounts. This intention becomes obscure in subsection 13.(3); which provides that all monies received from respective sectors will actually be pooled to defray costs incurred by the Energy Regulator proportionately in respect of each sector.

Our proposal is that Section 13.(3) needs to be amended to provide that: "In so far as the money received by the Energy Regulator in terms of section 12 consists of money appropriated by Parliament, it must be shared between the electricity, piped-gas and petroleum pipeline industries in proportion to the costs incurred by the Energy Regulator in respect of each of those industries. With regard to monies received from a particular industry, such money should be accounted for in its own separate account for the sole benefit of the regulation of that industry".

BY: SEPHEU ADOLF MAPHUTHA

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for SASOL GAS (PTY) LTD