PAIA Annual Reports

“The Information Regulator (“Regulator”) is a schedule 3A National Public Entity and an independent statutory body established in terms of section 39 of the Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013 (“POPIA”). The Regulator is, among others, empowered to monitor and enforce compliance by public and private bodies with the provisions of the Promotion of Access to Information Act 2 of 2000 (PAIA), in so far as access to information is concerned.

In terms of section 32 of PAIA, the Information Officer (“IO”) of every public body must annually submit to the Regulator a report in respect of access to information requests received and processed by the public body. Furthermore, and in accordance with section 83(4) of PAIA, the Heads of Private Bodies (“HPBs”) or Deputy Information Officers (“DIOs”) are hereby requested to submit to the Regulator, their Annual Reports about requests for access to records received and processed by the private body.

As part of our efforts to encourage seamless compliance with the provisions of PAIA, the Regulator has developed an online portal for submission of annual reports in terms of sections 32 and 83(4) of PAIA. Please note that the portal for submission of access to information Annual Reports will be live from 01 May 2024 and the submission of the said annual reports will close on 12 July 2024.

Please also note that you will not be able to submit your annual report unless your IO, HPB and DIOs are registered with the Regulator.”

What does this mean?

All private bodies (healthcare practices included) must submit a PAIA section 83(4) report (PAIA report) to the information regulator according to a notice the regulator published. The regulator has requested private bodies to submit this report between 1 May 2024 and 30 June 2024 on the Information Regulator’s e-services portal.

Is this mandatory? Yes, here is why

Every healthcare practice must submit the report by the deadline of 30 June 2024. If you don’t do that it may result in the Information Regulator conducting its own-initiative PAIA compliance assessment on your practice. (See section 77H(1) of PAIA).

What must you do?

  1. Migrate or register your information officer on the Information Regulator’s e-service portal.
    1. Organisations that registered their Information Officers in the previous Registration Portal that was in operation from August 2022 until April 2024 are required to migrate their data into the new e-Services portal. The Regulator cannot automatically migrate all organisation as some essential data is missing and must be provided before the migration can proceed. All available details will be presented on the Request for assistance-form. form below.
    2. The cost is R 500,00 (VAT inclusive) and include the registration / migration of your Information and Deputy Information Officer’s, submitting your Section 83(4) PAIA report. You will receive a Registration certificate and confirmation that you’re PAIA report is submitted from the Information Regulator.
  2. Note: The e-service portal indicates whether your PAIA Annual Report has been submitted or not. A green indicator denotes that the report has been successfully submitted, while a red indicator signifies that the report has not yet been submitted.

What is a Section 83(4) report (PAIA report)?

The objective of the submissions is to determine whether you are receiving and recording requests for information. The report requires you to also indicate whether the requests for information that were received were responded to within the time frames stipulated in PAIA and whether there were any internal appeals and the outcomes of those appeals

How we can help?

We can help with –

  1. Register your practice on the Information Regulator’s e-service portal.
  2. Register your Information Officer.
  3. Migrate your current registered Information Officer to the Information Officer’s e-service portal.
  4. Submit your Section 83(4) PAIA report.
Let us take care of everything for you (R 500.00 VAT Incl.)