It’s time to stop drafting bad legislation
The current draft Liquor Amendment Bill published by the Department of Trade and Industry is certainly one of the more contentious pieces of legislation that has found its way into Parliament in 2016.
My job as a Member of Parliament and legislator is to make sense of the arguments and to try and craft a bill that is sensible, rational enforceable, protects society and jobs ,while not limiting South Africans freedom as enshrined in the Constitution. No easy task then.
Unfortunately, South Africa has been dogged by poor legislation with liquor policy formation and legislation no exception.These range from the poorly thought out and drafted film publications bill to the border management bill.
What the current Amendment Bill tries to do is regulate what many people already know: alcohol abuse is a serious problem in our society and costs our country dearly, roughly 7-10% of GDP or around R165 - R236 billion per year.
It is therefore quite obvious that current legislation has been inadequate in dealing with alcohol related challenges that affect South Africa and this is largely because the focus of legislation is that of regulation and compliance of the registration of manufacturers and distributors of liquor; the production and composition for sale of certain liquor products; and the granting of licences to retailers to sell or the setting of trading times in respect of licensed premises.