Didiza says 24 bills are waiting as laws take 34 months to pass

Twenty four bills have reached the National Assembly since it reconvened in February, and three have been passed. Parliament’s own records show the other eight laws signed off this year were introduced in earlier sessions.

The Speaker of the National Assembly, Thoko Didiza, has put a figure on how long the queue takes to move. Parliament’s legal advisers told a panel of lawmakers last month that passing legislation affecting national and provincial administrations now takes an average of 34 months, against six months in 2004.

“We are very concerned about the length of time it takes to process and pass legislation,” Didiza said in an interview with Moneyweb, which reported the figures on 17 September. “We are looking at various proposals to condense the process, but we have to consider all factors when drafting legislation, such as the public participation process and the requirement to consult with outside stakeholders.”

That is the honest shape of the problem. Public participation and consultation are not obstacles to good lawmaking. They are the reason a bill survives its first court challenge, and the reason a rule written in Pretoria does not land on a municipality that was never asked whether it could carry it.

What is actually stuck

The bills in the queue are not ceremonial. A proposed law that would set support thresholds political parties must meet to qualify for seats on municipal councils is among them. South Africa is due to hold local government elections on 4 November. Thresholds would change how coalitions form in towns where no party wins an outright majority, which is now most of them.

Also waiting are the Electronic Communications Amendment Bill, which would redraw the regulatory framework for telecommunications, a bill to create a single state owned petrochemical company, and at least two bills aimed at curbing money laundering and corruption.

Each of those has a real world cost attached. Telecoms regulation decides what a licence costs and how quickly a network can be built. Money laundering rules decide whether a South African bank can clear a payment in Frankfurt or Singapore without a compliance officer stopping it. The petrochemical bill decides how the state’s stake in a strategic industry is held.

Why the queue got longer

Parliament’s legal advisers gave the panel three reasons. Lawmakers are taking more time on hearings and public submissions on key bills. There are logistical constraints, including a shortage of committee rooms after the fire in 2022 that burnt down the National Assembly.

And the political arithmetic changed. The 2024 national election cost the African National Congress its parliamentary majority for the first time since 1994, and it governs in coalition with nine rivals. Coalition government is slower by design. More parties in the room means more consultation before a vote, and that is a feature of the arrangement rather than a malfunction.

The 34 month figure should be read with that in mind. It is a measure of a Parliament learning to work without a single party able to carry a bill on its own.

What it means outside the gates

Legislation that does not pass leaves the previous law standing. For an ordinary South African that is not an abstraction. It is a spaza owner waiting on a licensing change, a telecoms company holding back on a build, a compliance team working to a rulebook that Parliament has already decided is out of date.

It also shifts power. When Parliament is slow, the work of setting the rules moves to departments, regulators and the courts, none of which were elected to make the call.

Didiza has not left it there. She has confirmed that proposals to condense the process are under consideration, and she has named the constraint that any of them has to respect, which is the consultation and public participation that give a law its durability. A shorter process that skips the hearings would simply move the delay to the courtroom.

The 4 November local government elections give the municipal threshold bill a deadline of its own. If it is not passed before voters go to the polls, coalitions in hung councils will form under the current rules, and the argument over thresholds will be had again after the fact.

The Enquirer has asked the Office of the Speaker for the proposals under consideration, the committee rooms still out of use after the 2022 fire, and the date the municipal threshold bill is expected to reach the floor of the National Assembly.

Source: Moneyweb, Key SA legislation stuck in parliamentary limbo, 17 September 2026.