Promotion of Access to Information Act (PAIA): What you need to know

The aim of PAIA, is to foster a culture of transparency and accountability in public and private bodies. It does that by giving effect to the right of access to information and actively promoting a society in which the people of South Africa have effective access to information, to enabling them to exercise and protect all their rights, and to realise South Africa’s goals of an open and participatory democracy.

PAIA came into effect on 9 March 2001 and followed a phased implementation approach.

This legislation requires, amongst other things, that organisations appoint an Information Officer and compile and make available a PAIA manual.

With effect from 1 January 2022, all private and public bodies are required to have a PAIA Manual in place.

Private bodies are defined as a person, company or other juristic entity that carries on trade, business, or profession, including a political party.

Public bodies are defined as a government department or other functionary or institution performing a public function. However, with regard to internal appeal, any reference to “public body” has been changed to “Government”, to avoid confusion, as appeal is not applicable to public bodies.

The PAIA manual sets out key contact information, outlines information that might already be publicly available without following a formal process and details the process to be followed to request certain information from an organisation.

There are different requirements that apply to the PAIA manual for private and public bodies.

For private bodies, the manual should:

• Be prepared at least in English.
• Be available on the organisation’s website and at its official place of business.
• Not need to be submitted.

The Information Regulator has made available templates that can be used by organisations to prepare their PAIA manuals:
Find out more

The information Officer is the person authorised to handle PAIA requests. Note that specific requirements apply to the eligibility of an individual to act as Information Officer for an organisation. The individual must be of sufficient seniority within the organisation. This role cannot be outsourced to an external service provider.

We urge clients to please ensure that the Information Officer are registered on the eServices Portal of the Information Regulator: Find out more

All public bodies are required in terms of PAIA to submit an annual report to the Information Regulator in respect of access to information requests received and processed by the public body.

The Information Regulator, within its authority, has also requested that private bodies submit an annual report for the 2024 reporting period about requests for access to records received and processed by the private body. We share some details on said annual submission below.

It remains uncertain whether the Information Regulator will continue to request private bodies to submit annual reports in future. For now, the requirement for private bodies only applies to the 2024 submission.

The annual report had to be submitted by the Information Officer via the Information Regulator’s eServices portal:
Find out more

Initially the deadline was set as 30 June 2024 whereafter it was extended to 12 July 2024.

Very little awareness was created for the obligation. No action is required should you have missed this deadline. We still do urge clients to ensure that the Information Officer are registered on the portal as highlighted above.

As mentioned earlier, the Information Officer will submit the annual report on the eServices portal.

For support, you can contact the Information Regulator at helpdesk@inforegulator.org.za