Two industry leaders in online legislative information, Sabinet Online (Pty) Limited and Legi-Link, have joined forces to present Bill Tracker, a dynamic system providing information on every Bill before Parliament.
Developed by Cape Town-based Legi-Link (www.legilink.co.za), Bill Tracker is now also available via the website of Sabinet Online (www.sabinet.co.za), a Centurion-based company with 18 years experience in providing value-added online access to acclaimed local and international information databases.
Whereas Sabinet Online publishes all acts as they are promulgated, and the subsequent regulations, Legi-Link leverages its 20 years of experience in liaison between civil society and Parliament to cover the earlier process from policy to Bills to Acts.
Bill Tracker focuses on legislation, present and future, is updated each morning and puts the facts at the online user's finger-tips.
Pierre Malan, Sabinet Online's business development director, comments: "Bill Tracker adds tremendous value to our highly successful SA Gazettes, which contains the electronic full-text of all acts, amendment acts and regulations as published by the Government Printer."
"The combination of Sabinet Online and Legi-Link's respective, specialist areas of expertise and experience makes this an unmatched, wall-to-wall service," adds Chris Newton, founder and developer of Legi-Link.
Newton believes that the service provides an essential window to legislation in the making, thereby playing an important role in the democratic process.
"Apart from the socio-political connotations, decisions that are made in Parliament can have multi-million or even -billion dollar price tags if affected parties, individuals or interest groups get it wrong," he points out.
In contrast to the risky "wait and see" approach, Bill Tracker acts as a highly cost-effective, online research tool for business and society at large to remain abreast of ongoing legislative developments, insofar as these affects their interests. This provides peace of mind by maximising the time available to analyse and respond to developments surrounding bills.
Being web-based, Bill Tracker is easy to use. It is updated each morning and provides quick access to all facts pertaining to a bill. Features include a numerically presented index of all bills currently before parliament, from which can be accessed a profile, history and status of each bill.
In addition, the service provides an alphabetical list of all bills for the current year, both in process and completed, which are downloadable full text. Cross-references can furthermore be made to corresponding recent acts and Gazettes.
Adding value to the service is a list of future bills, legislation and comments for the current year, which are collated from various sources. Also included is a glossary of parliamentary terms, as well as terms used on the Bill Tracking web site.
Importance ratings according to interest groups such as business, industrial relations, legal fraternity, and socio-political are furthermore provided, so that interest groups are guided to subjects of relevance to them. A customised e-mail alerting service is also available.
Existing and potential users of Bill Tracker include small to large companies, representative organisations, bankers and tax experts, community and issue-oriented organisations, educational institutions, industrial relations practitioners, legal firms, parastatals, policy centres, Provincial Legislatures and local government, among others.
Bill Tracker has enjoyed a successful trial phase with a large number of Legi-Link's clients. "We are now pleased to make it available to a broader marketplace, in co-operation with Sabinet Online," says Newton.
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