Roadshows ready for secrecy bill

The NATIONAL Council of Provinces will take the debate over the Protection of State Information Bill to all provinces by the end of the month.

The NCOP's ad-hoc committee dealing with the proposed law met yesterday to approve a jam-packed programme that will see it travel to all corners of South Africa to hear citizens' concerns about the bill.

The National Assembly passed the bill despite stiff opposition from opposition parties, the media and civil society bodies.

They objected to the omission of provision for a public-interest defence for publishing classified information.

Media and other lobby groups hope the committee will be more sympathetic than the National Assembly to their calls for the insertion of a public-interest defence but the NCOP does not have a reputation for deviating from the views of parliament.

The ad-hoc committee will kick off its business with a briefing by the Department of State Security on January 24 .

Ad-hoc committee chairman Papi Tau said it would be divided into three groups.

"One of the things we agreed on was to divide the committee into three groups, which would lead this process," he said.

Tau denied that the measure was designed to rush the bill through parliament's second chamber.

He said it was aimed at making sure that his committee would accommodate as many views as possible before it reached its conclusion in April.

"We are engaging in this exercise of ensuring that whatever product that comes out of this is a product of the people, is a product of the South African population, hence we would go and do everything we can to ensure we go out to provinces to talk to our people," said Tau.

But Independent Democrats MP John Gunda said that though he was not opposed to the idea of taking the bill to the people, the committee needed to ensure that the people with whom it sought to debate the bill were knowledgable about its contents.

"We must make a 100% sure . that the people have enough information to make inputs about this thing.

"We must not find people who know nothing about this thing," Gunda said.

A survey by research firm ikapadata last week found that 40% of township residents did not know what the Protection of State Information Bill was, and it is feared the situation is worse in rural areas.