Bills passed by parliament must be signed by the president and published in the Government Gazette before they are valid laws.
Even after they are published in this way, some laws come into force only at a later date announced by the relevant minister, to allow time to prepare for their implementation.
This article looks at the 2024 laws that have been published in the Government Gazette as of end-November 2024.
How many laws have been finalised in 2024 to date?
As of the end of November 2024, 12 laws had been passed by parliament, signed by the president and published in the Government Gazette.
Eight of these were amendments to other legislation, with only four being independent new laws.
Four independent new laws
- • Vehicle Mass Act: This Act is aimed at minimising damage to the national road network.
It sets the permissible mass for vehicles using the national road network and makes provision for weigh stations and other enforcement mechanisms.
- • Appropriation Act: This is the law that allocates the annual budget to the different government ministries and agencies. Parliament passes an appropriation act every year.
- • Dissolution of Marriages Act: This law replaces Namibia’s outdated fault-based approach to divorce with a new approach based on irretrievable breakdown of the marriage.
It provides for simplified procedures and paves the way for divorces to be granted by regional magistrate’s courts, to make them less prohibitively expensive.
- • Property Practitioners Act: This law replaces the 1976 Estate Agents Act with an updated approach to the regulation of property practitioners.
It provides mechanisms for dealing with consumer complaints and for enforcing standards of conduct for these professionals.
Of these four new laws, only the Appropriation Act has been brought into force.
Eight laws that amend existing laws
- • High Court Amendment Act: These amendments, not yet in force, are aimed at providing new protections in respect of the sale of land and houses to satisfy unpaid debts – particularly where the property in question is a person’s primary home.
- • Income Tax Amendment Act: This law’s most far-reaching changes were to increase the threshold for income tax liability by individuals and to reduce the tax rate on companies other than mining companies.
Individuals who earn N$100 000 or less a year now do not have to pay any income tax.
- • Value-Added Tax Amendment Act: Among other things, this law raises the threshold of annual earnings for VAT registration (to N$1 million) and adjusts the rate of interest on overdue VAT amounts and VAT refunds.
- • Transfer Duty Amendment Act: This law adjusts the threshholds for transfer duties that must be paid when property is sold.
No transfer duty is charged when an individual buys property valued at N$1.1 million or less.
This law also adjusts the definition of property transactions to cover transactions where ownership is transferred through the transfer of shares in a company or a close corporation.
- • Stamp Duties Amendment Act: Stamp duties are charges that are paid in relation to certain legal documents.
This law makes it possible to pay these duties electronically instead of through the use of physical stamps, and adjusts the threshholds for stamp duties.
No stamp duty is charged when an individual purchases property valued at N$1.1 million or less.
- • Electoral Amendment Act: This law makes it possible for public servants or members of the National Council, regional councils or local authority councils to be nominated on party lists for Naitonal Assembly elections, but they must take leave from their positions from the time their names are published on the party list until the election results are announced.
If they are elected to the National Assembly, they must resign or retire from the public service with effect from the date that the election results are announced.
- • Road Fund Administration Amendment Act: The amendment, which is not yet in force, will give the chief executive officer of Road Fund Administration the power to waive interest and penalties on outstanding annual licence fees.
- • Appropriation Amendment Act: This adjusts the budget allocations in the Appropriations Act passed earlier in the year.
Laws passed in 2024 that are not yet gazetted
Four other bills were passed by both houses of parliament in 2024 but have not yet been published in the Government Gazette:
- • Marriage Act: This is a replacement for the 1961 Marriage Act, with new rules about how civil marriages are concluded in Namibia.
- • Civil Registration and Identification Act: This law deals with the official registration of births, deaths, marriages and divorces as well as identification documents.
- • Regularisation of Status of Certain Residents of Namibia, Their Descendants, and Foreign Spouses Act: This law provides for citizenship for people resident in Namibia since before independence who have no documentation other than ‘South West African IDs’ and need assistance to prevent statelessness, for themselves and their immediate family members.
- • Health Professions Act: This law consolidates various health professions under the authority of a single council.
Conclusion
It was a fairly slow year in parliament, with the impending national election certainly serving as a distraction.
There were in fact several occasions when pending bills could not be debated because of lack of a sufficient quorum in the National Assembly.
Let us hope that the new National Assembly that will begin work in 2025 comes into office full of energy and commitment to move the laws of Namibia forward.
- • The Law Hubb will be back in February 2025.
• Dianne Hubbard is a legal consultant with many years of experience in public interest law and a passion for trying to make legal issues clear and accessible.
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