Chairperson, this is probably one of the most grilled Bills that this Parliament has had to deal with. The legislative drafting process relates to an incident that occurred on 11 April 2001 in Johannesburg at the Ellis Park Stadium, where 43 of our citizens died unnecessarily. That incident, of course, had its precursor in a similar incident at the Orkney Stadium, where another mass death of spectators was witnessed during a football game.
The Bill has, amongst other things, incorporated all the recommendations that Justice Ngoepe had proposed be implemented to prevent such a thing ever happening again in our country. Justice Ngoepe headed a commission which former President Mbeki appointed to investigate the causes of these sorts of tragedies, especially the one at Ellis Park. Justice Ngoepe also had to advise government on what had to be done to prevent such tragedies ever occurring again.
The Bill promotes and protects the physical wellbeing and safety of all persons attending sports and recreational events. It promotes the safety of their property at stadia and other venues in South Africa.
This Bill determines and maintains minimum safety and security standards at sports and recreational events and it further also promotes South Africa as a destination of choice for the hosting of international events.
Our country currently does not enjoy the benefit of a formal regulatory framework designed to protect the interests of, amongst others, the general public and other key stakeholders who are usually present at our stadia and other venues, and at events that our people use to entertain themselves. While South Africa has an admirable record in the preparation for and the delivery of safety and security at major events in our country, the challenge with which we are currently faced is that there is no consistent application of the safety and security regulations. The protocols that exist are simply not implementable; they are not justiciable. This Bill regulates important safety and security matters which are required to ensure that our country hosts incident-free events that South Africa is asked to host or that South Africa offers to host.
In essence, the streamlined Bill seeks to regulate the following key areas: the responsibilities of role-players; the risk-profiling of events; the establishment of an annual schedule of events to prevent the stretching of public sector security and emergency services resourcing; the safety certification and grading of venues, fixed and temporary structures; and integrated and timeous events safety and security planning, co-operation and co-ordination between all relevant stakeholders.
This Bill also seeks to regulate minimum safety and security measures and standards at public events as well as the management of ticketing controls and the timeous purchase and sale of tickets. It regulates the prevention of criminal offences and it regulates the protection of people against such criminal activities.
The Bill enjoyed a very extensive consultative editing process by the state law advisers and also by both the Portfolio Committee on Sport and Recreation and the erstwhile Portfolio Committee on Safety and Security.
Importantly, the Bill enjoys a wide range of support from, among other groups, the SA Police Service and the national, provincial and local government emergency services and disaster management departments countrywide.
Reservations have, of course, been expressed during the hearings. This is natural, because this Bill is very expensive for those who do not comply with its dictates. The organisers of these events want money out of them, so they want to delete from the Bill anything that threatens to diminish those incomes.
Indeed, the municipalities who own those facilities will incur huge liabilities in the event of an incident like the one at Ellis Park ever recurring and they want to avoid those liabilities. We think they must be prepared to incur liabilities when not complying with the regulations that protect the wellbeing and security of our people.
To avoid a prolonged discussion and negotiation around these issues, we have opted for a gradual implementation of the sections of this Bill. We don't want to shock everybody into running away from the table; we rather want to introduce this Bill on a gradual basis.
This Bill also defines the stakeholders from the state's side. It defines government's stakeholders as the Minister of Sport and Recreation, the Minister of Police, the National Commissioner of the SA Police Service and his or her authorised member - because the commissioner can be a "she" one day - event safety and security planning and, of course, local authorities.
We see this Bill as a very important piece of legislation which constitutes a very real attempt to introduce safety and security legislation that will go a long way. It by far supersedes anything that the world has seen in the five other countries that have similar Bills, countries like the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and so forth.
They fall far short compared to what we are asking the organisers to put in place. We are sure that all members of this House do not want a repeat of Ellis Park and Orkney. We are sure members of this House do not want to lose property during these games and for that reason we urge them not to hesitate to support this Bill. Thank you, sir. [Applause.]