On the occasion of addressing the ad hoc committee dealing with the Protection of Information Bill in Parliament, we have provided our initial response to the many useful and critical inputs made by members of the public during the hearings on this Bill.

We would like, once again, to thank all those who participated during this process. Going through the body of these submissions, it became apparent that a lot of thought was put into these. It is for this reason that we had to ask for an extension of time in order to apply our minds accordingly.

As the Ministry, we have indicated to the Adhoc Committee that in our view, notwithstanding some of the radical calls for this bill to be withdrawn, this Bill is a necessary tool that government requires in dealing with modern day challenges that confront our nation. These include the rising threat of espionage, information peddling and the protection of critical databases in government that enable citizens and residents to exercise their rights enshrined in the constitution.

We are on record indicating that it is our intention to address those areas of concern perceived to be broad and vague in the Bill. This is an effort to ensure that we emerge with a Bill that empowers us to deal with the challenges referred to herein above.

To give effect to our undertaking, we have made the following proposals to the ad hoc committee, which proposals will form the basis for improving the identified weakness:

• The broad and vague definitions must be dropped from the body of this Bill. In this regard, the concepts of "national interest and "commercial information", amongst others will be removed. Proposals will be submitted to the Adhoc Committee in this regard.
• The specific areas of information we seek to protect must be clearly identified and explained. In this regard, we have proposed that in terms of the Promotion of Access to Information Act, Act 2 of 2000, there is already information that cannot be made available to the public. This is the information we seek to protect. The second area of the information that requires protection is that which forms part of the state security information, which, notably, no one disputes it should be protected. This includes such information as intelligence, defence and security related information.
• The Bill needs to be made leaner, clear and meaner through re-arranging the Chapters and re-aligning the sections that deal with the key provisions of it. In this way, the Bill will make for easier understanding and will eliminate any confusion that might arise.

As we indicated, this is by no means an exhaustive process. More work lies ahead and we have pledged our support to the committee in this regard.

Statement issued by Brian Dube, Head of Communication, Ministry of State Security, September 17 2010

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