The Information Regulator’s e-service portal for public and private bodies to submit their Promotion of Access to Information Act (PAIA) annual reports will be live on 1 May.
In a statement issued yesterday, the regulator says the online portal will close on 30 June.
The platform, it states, is designed to streamline organisations’ compliance journey, making it easier to meet regulatory requirements and protect sensitive data.
According to the regulator, the reports sought are for the 2023/2024 (1 April 2023 to 31 March 2024) financial year, submitted in terms of section 32 and section 83 (4) of the Act.
The information officer of every public body must annually submit a report to the regulator, in respect of access to information requests received and processed.
Furthermore, the heads of private bodies or deputy information officers are required to submit to the regulator their PAIA annual reports about requests for access to records received and processed by the private body.
“In order to be able to submit the PAIA annual report, the public body information officer and heads of private bodies or deputy information officers must be registered with the regulator.
“The purpose of the report is to give an account of the number of requests for access received, access granted in full, access granted in terms of section 46 (mandatory disclosure in the public interest), access refused fully or partially, cases extended, internal appeals to relevant authority, and the number of internal appeals that were refused on the ground that an internal appeal was regarded as having been dismissed.”
The Information Regulator is, among other duties, empowered to monitor and enforce compliance by public and private bodies with the provisions of SA’s data privacy law POPIA.
As of 1 July 2021, the regulator officially took over the oversight of PAIA from the South African Human Rights Commission.
PAIA imposes an obligation on an information officer to compile a PAIA manual and make it available on the institution’s website, if any, and at the head office of the institution for public inspection during normal business hours.
It also requires that the information officer compiles and issues a notice of categories of records that are automatically available without a requester having to ask for them.
Should public and private bodies experience technical challenges, the regulator says they can contact the PAIA technical support team on: Paia-support@inforegulator.org.za or 010 023 5200.
For any general enquiries, they can contact advocate Makhwedi Makgopa-Madisa at MMakgopa-Madisa@infoRegulator.org.za or Nokwanda Molefe at Nmolefe@inforegulator.org.za.
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