DA notes the release of the National Key Points list

23 January 2015

The DA notes the release of the list of South Africa's National Key Points after several years of fighting to review the list of 200-odd National Key Points.

This comes after the Minister of Police, Nathi Nhleko, made public the list last night following a successful court bid in December last year to have the list published.

Although the Police Minister has made the list public, the process and criteria of declaring various installations as national key points is still shrouded in secrecy.

It is also unclear how much the taxpayer forks out every year to "maintain" these said national key points.

Moreover, this act has lately been used to justify the burying of information relating to the exorbitant expenditure of public funds, as was the case with the R246 million upgrade of President Jacob Zuma's private home at Nkandla. These actions are congruent with the behaviour of the apartheid regime.

Most concerning, Section 10 of the Act creates a criminal offence by prohibiting anyone from providing: " any information relating to the security measures, applicable at or in respect of any national key point or in respect of any incident that occurred there."

The DA has long held that the National Key Points Act of 1980 is an archaic Apartheid-era piece of legislation that is not consistent with the values of openness and accountability. 

Among the "many" problems of the National Key Points Act are the following:

The Minister of Police has sole discretion over what is considered a national key point without any checks and balances;

The definition of a national key point is so vague as to lend itself to abuse by the state;

The special account designed to assist in funding the operation of national key points is nonexistent. This results in the improper appropriation of state funds, wherein government departments allocate funds to upgrading and securing national key points when these should be obtained from the special account; and

Owners (of national key points) are required to pay for security upgrades that the Police Minister deems necessary. This is a mandate which should be funded by the state so owners are not excessively burdened by government security concerns.

The National Key Points Act of 1980 is a self-serving Act that should be relegated to an Apartheid scrap heap but Zuma's ANC government has 246 reasons to keep it around. 

It is for this reason that the DA will, in due course, be submitting a private members' bill to repeal the act in its entirety and replace it with legislation that is appropriate to the South Africa of today.

The time for secrecy is over and Parliament must step in to uncover the full truth of our nations national key points.

Statement issued by James Selfe MP, DA Federal Executive Chairperson, January 23 2015

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