Old apartheid legislation dismantled

Eastern Cape to repeal 29 obsolete laws this month

IT’S CLEAN-UP month in the Eastern Cape, with more apartheid laws being binned and illegal Wild Coast cottages being demolished.

Yesterday, the province issued the Repeal of Local Government and Traditional Affairs Bill, listing 29 “obsolete and old order legislation” to be repealed either partly or entirely.

“The province inherited a myriad laws from the then Cape Provincial Administration and the republics of Transkei and Ciskei. Some of these laws have become obsolete and therefore it is necessary that they be removed from the statute books,” said the provincial government’s memo on the bill.

“The bill is to ensure that old order legislation is repealed, thereby creating legal certainty.”

The obsolete legislation is acts, ordinances, proclamations and even a law issued by military government decree.

These include: the Black Administration Act of 1927; the Black Authorities Act of 1951; the Transkei Authorities Act of 1965; the Delegation of Powers Ordinance of 1965; the Community Services in Black Areas Regulations of 1967; the Sanitary Regulations in Rural Black Areas of 1968; the Administration Amendment Act (Transkei) of 1976; the Dog Tax Ordinance of 1978; the Municipalities Act (Ciskei) of 1987; the Abolition of Raciallybased Land Measures Act of 1991; and the Customary Law Amendment Decree (Ciskei) of 1991.

The Eastern Cape includes the former nominally inde- pendent territories of the former Transkei and Ciskei, which ran their own administrations.

The Eastern Cape has also issued notice that this month it intends demolishing five ille- gally built structures along the Wild Coast. This is being done under the National Environmental Management: Integrated Coastal Management Act. Four of the structures are regarded as abandoned and the fifth is a recent construction, said the notice; those responsible can’t be found.

According to the GPS coordinates listed in the notice, three of the abandoned structures are south of Hole in the Wall and the fourth is near the Nqabara River mouth, south of Dwesa nature reserve.

The GPS co-ordinates for the recently constructed shack put it somewhere in the sea just off the coast at Mbotyi.

ILLEGAL: Five structures on the Wild Coast have been earmarked for demolition, including two near Hole in the Wall, top, south of Dwesa nature reserve, below left, and near Mbotyi, below right.