AS a wide-eyed young reporter one of the most fascinating things in the maze of press law was the National Key Points Act.
With the sword of going to jail hanging over our heads, the newsroom population would attempt to fathom out how one was not permitted to take photos of, or know the identity of, a key point when it was illegal to disclose what these were. You were in big trouble if you published pictures of these special places, but what they were was an official secret.
It was easy to take a flying guess so we all steered clear of photographing police stations, military installations and oil refineries. When you were threatened by a crusty old editor with the equivalent of a slow, painful death, you toed the line.
The fascinating thing about South African politics is that the more things change, the more they remain the same. The National Key Points Act was signed into law in 1980. The purpose of the Act, according to Wikipedia, was to protect sites of strategic importance to the State from sabotage. This apartheid law’s prime function was to secretly provide protection to privately-owned strategic sites as well as State-owned corporations, with the owners footing the bill.
The fascinating thing about this bit of apartheid legislation is that it has remained intact and unamended all these years up until last week.
That is when the Johannesburg High Court ordered the government to release the list and the government gave up its attempt to appeal the ruling.
The release of the key points list was preceded by a two-year legal battle first driven by the Right2Know Campaign in 2012, and supported by the Democratic Alliance from 2013. Amid all this cloak and dagger stuff, the list of national key points makes for fascinating reading, mainly for what is not on the list rather than what it contains. Except Nkandla, of course.
Here’s what we have been wanting to know all these years (because of space constraints only the national key points in KwaZulu-Natal are listed):
SABC Durban, Total A (Cutler), Acaia Operations Services (Heartland Leasing), Engen Depot (Cutler), Total Depot (Cutler), Valvoline Depot (Cutler), PD Terminals Depot (Cutler), Caleb Brett (Cutler), Industrial Oil Processors (Cutler), Durban Bulk Shipping (Cutler), SA Petroleum Refinery (SAPREF) (Cutler), SA Pretroleum Refinery (SAPREF) Reunion, Engen Refinery, Natcos (Cutler), Natcos, Single Buoy Mooring, Transnet Pumping Station – Newcastle, Impala Transmission Station, Klaarwater Distribution Station, Pegasus Transmission Station, Drakensberg Power Station, Island View Storage (Cutler), Caltex Depot (Cutler), Zenex Depot (Cutler), Durban South Distribution Station, Transnet Pumping Station – Ladysmith, Transnet Pumping Station (Cutler), Transnet Pumping Station – Quegga’s Nek, Transnet Pumping Station – Hillcrest, Transnet Pumping Station – Howick, Transnet Pumping Station – Van Reenen, Pres of SA Res – KZN, Presidential Res – JL Dube House, New Aviation Fuel Depot at KSIA, King Shaka International Airport Air Side, Durban North Distribution Station, Athene Transmission Station, Lotus Park Distribution Station, SA Reserve Bank – Durban, Duzi TPL Depot, Mooi River TPL Depot, Fortmistake Transnet Pipeline – Ladysmith, Mngeni TPL Depot, Mnambithi TPL Depot, Ntwini TPL Depot, Hilltop TPL Depot, KZN Provincial Legislature.
Notice there are no military bases. And the most fascinating is that the Waterkloof Airforce Base is not a national key point, so all the hullabaloo about the Guptas landing a plane there was for nought.
Is this the final word on the National Key Points Act? I think not.
