South Africa's ruling ANC is watering down proposed secrecy laws that had worried the media and investors because of the stiff penalties mandated for exposing corruption, domestic media reported on Saturday.

The SAPA news agency said the African National Congress-led (ANC) government had agreed to scrap mandatory jail terms for possessing or publishing secret information, and to narrow the definitions of what could be classified.

The revised Protection of Information Bill will now only apply to the intelligence and security services. Previously it would have let civil servants and state institutions deem pretty much anything a state secret.

"We believe, and this is a formal proposal from the ANC, that the scope of application of the bill must be drastically reduced insofar as it applies to the authority to classify information," ANC MP Luwellyn Landers was quoted as saying.

Opponents of the bill -- a reincarnation of apartheid-era secrecy laws -- had argued it would let bent officials hide misdemeanours by making sensitive information difficult to obtain and by threatening journalists or whistleblowers with up to 25 years in jail.

Concerns
It would have also raised concerns about state enterprises such as power utility Eskom coming clean on sensitive issues such as financing or power supply problems.

Even the ANC's biggest ally, the trade union federation COSATU, had called on the former liberation movement not to rush the proposed bill into law.

Since the ANC came to power in 1994 ending decades of white-minority rule, South Africa's economy has thrived, although concerns have grown about a concomitant rise in corruption, particularly in local government.

South Africa's media have become adept at exposing graft and incompetence at all levels of government, and have had a testy relationship with the government of President Jacob Zuma.

Source: Reuters