Please be advised that The Information Regulator issued a media statement that requires all public and private bodies to submit Annual Reports for the 2022/2023 financial year, by 30 June 2023.
The report is focused on access to information requests that were received and processed.
Section 32 of the Promotion of Access to Information Act (PAIA) requires the information officer of every public body to submit on an annual basis a report to the Information Regulator in respect of access to information requests received and processed by the public body. Whilst Section 83(4) of PAIA empowers the Information Regulator to also request the heads of private bodies to furnish it with reports about requests for access to records of the private body.
Information officers are required to submit the Annual Report via the Information Regulator’s online portal and must sign up using the following link and thereafter submit their report:
https://registrations.inforegulator.org.za/landing
The portal has been live from 1 May 2023 and will close on 30 June 2023. The objective of the submissions is to determine whether public and private bodies are receiving and recording requests for information. The report requires these bodies to also indicate whether the requests for information that were received were responded to within the time frames stipulated in PAIA and whether there were any internal appeals and the outcomes of those appeals.
We encourage all members to comply with this request from the Information Regulator by the stipulated deadline.
For any general enquiries relating to compliance with Sections 32 and 83(4) of PAIA, you may contact Ntsumbedzeni Nemasisi at NNemasisi@infoRegulator.org.za or Ms Nokwanda Molefe at Nmolefe@infoRegulator.org.za
