Pretoria - Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa says the review of the country’s National Key Points Act has begun.
The review will come up with a policy document that will help to clear misconceptions around key points, which have recently come under the spotlight.
The review, according to Mthethwa, will include a public consultation process, which will commence in early 2014. It will culminate in the tabling of the list of all national key points at the Joint Standing Committee on Intelligence.
An advisory committee, which was established at the beginning of the year to look into the matter of national key points, has already audited 200 sites.
These include electricity, energy, petrochemical, communication, financial, land administration as well as critical research facilities.
In its interim report, the committee highlighted that there was a need to identify, prioritise and protect what has been broadly defined as critical infrastructure.
“This increased focus and attention has been as a result of the recognition that the destabilisation of critical infrastructure, be it physical or virtual, can and will have both economic and social consequences for countries,” Mthethwa told Parliament on Friday.
He said the team, which was led by Advocate Hamilton Maenetje, focused on both local and international practices and approaches, as the maintenance of national key points is not a unique trend to South Africa.
Mthethwa said there have been some misrepresentations surrounding the key points.
Some of the fundamental observations that the committee discovered during their audit are that military facilities are governed under the Defence Act, 2002 (Act No. 42 of 2002), and are therefore not required to be declared national key points. Also, prison facilities fall under the Correctional Service Act, 1998 (Act No. 111 of 1998) and are therefore not required to be declared national key points.
The committee found that there are no restrictions under the National Key Point Act that prevent people from gathering next to national key points, although other relevant legislation may regulate such gatherings.
They also found that there are designated areas and sites which have been declared and in some cases, the declaration does not cover the entire site.
Protecting key points
Regarding the public discourse to publicise the actual list of national key points, Mthethwa said the committee found that international approaches to critical infrastructure do not necessarily involve the publication of such lists.
“In fact, most countries do report through certain parliamentary processes on their critical infrastructure. What is important to note though is that these countries do not generally publish the lists of their critical infrastructure.”
In mapping a way forward, the committee recommended that sensitivity surrounding all security issues and the transparency requirements of a constitutional democracy compels government to take into account the various international models when crafting new legislation.
The processes involved in the declaration and categorisation of critical infrastructure need to comply with constitutional principles.
For this purpose, it is proposed that a ministerial committee and an interdepartmental committee be established to deal with these matters, and that specific functions be clearly allocated to each committee.
The committees would advise the Minister of Police on both the suitability of declaring a site as well as its categorisation. Categorisation may be delegated to the ministerial committee or interdepartmental committee.
Legislation must enable the Minister of Police to set minimum standards of security and protection, including physical resources standards for the various categories, training standards for security guards in the various categories as well as other criteria and standards applicable to the critical infrastructure.
The committee further recommended that clear policy should be developed and made publicly available, which would not only guide the approach to the protection of critical infrastructure but also provide public clarity on issues, without having to publish a list of such infrastructure.
The committee was of the view that the protection of critical infrastructure is deemed necessary not only from possible commonly identified physical threats, such as terrorism, but also from other potential threats, including organised and cyber-crime and national disasters.
Mthethwa said they have welcomed and adopted the findings of the committee, and that work is underway to implement the recommendations. - SAnews.gov.za
