​Friday,08 September 2023, Parliament hosted a public hearing on the amendment of the Older Persons Act, 2006, at the Bronkhorstspruit Sports Complex.
The Older Persons Act of 2006, (Principal Act) mandates that services to Older Persons should be rendered in a comprehensive, coordinated, integrated, and standardised manner by all organs of state and other service providers.

The Department of Social Development as the custodian and lead Department for the provision of services to older persons, has a responsibility of ensuring that the objectives of the principal act are adhered to and that older persons receive services in accordance with the Act.

The Act came into effect on April 1, 2010. Soon thereafter, several challenges in relation to the implementation of the act were experienced. Chief amongst these were institutional, coordinating mechanisms and compliance measures, overall poor coordination and inter-sectoral collaborations, which impacted negatively on the provision of services to older persons.

The purpose of the Older Persons Amendment Bill 2022 is to ensure that older persons are provided with quality services and are afforded the necessary protection by society, including community-based and residential care facilities.

The Bill seeks to insert new definitions and new provisions relating to the monitoring and evaluation of all services to older persons, to make provision for the removal of older persons to temporary safe care without a court order, to tighten up the existing implementation and compliance measures and to effect some textual amendments for greater clarity.

Responding to some of the comments and questions made, National Department of Social Development Chief Director Civil Legodi said, “Already we have moved swiftly among others to rectify the definition of an older person to begin with, which is any person who is older than 60 years of age, which previous was 60 years for women and 65 years for men”.

The roadshow is set to continue to other Gauteng Regions.