The Promotion of Access to Information Act, No. 2 of 2000 (PAIA) is the national legislation that ensures our constitutional right of access to information. The PAIA came into operation in March 2001.
Section 14 of the PAIA for public bodies and section 51 of the PAIA for private bodies came into effect in February 2002. One of the main objectives of the PAIA is to promote transparency, accountability and effective governance of all private and public bodies.
According to section 51 of PAIA, non-government bodies need to create both a manual describing the type of records they hold and procedures for others to access that information.
All bodies corporate, share block schemes, and home owners associations are private bodies and are not exempt from PAIA.
Contents of the Manual:
- Scheme contact details.
- Contact details of the head of the organisation.
- Reference to the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) – the guide that the SAHRC has produced to the Act and how to access it.
- Procedure for requesting information for the organisation.
- Description of what information is automatically available to the public.
You have an obligation to make the manual available to the Public. This includes the obligation that the Manual must be submitted to:
- SAHRC.
- Any controlling body (e.g. for layered schemes).
- Any scheme website.
- Its main office during office hours (or the managing agent’s premises if no office exists).
Anyone has the right to request the information from the scheme, but PAIA does set limits on the types of information that can be accessed. For example, information does not need to be given if it infringes a person’s right to privacy or safety.
It would be advisable that the managing agent or trustees develop a procedure to handle the requests. People can only request the information when the record is required for the exercise of rights or protection of rights. This will require some degree of discretion from the person handling the requests and may end up in disputes.
To wrap up, what you need to do is prepare your sectional title scheme’s PAIA Manual, publish it before 31 December 2015 (it was extended from 31 December 2011), send a copy to the SAHRC, and have it available to be printed and handed over in physical form.
You must also prepare procedures for dealing with requests and make sure the people dealing with those requests know how to handle them.
Should you require any further information in this regard, kindly contact Michael Bauer on 083 255 4442 or email Michael@ihfm.co.za.
For more information, please visit www.ihfm.co.za.
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