Hon Speaker, the Budgetary Review and Recommendation Report of the Portfolio Committee on Employment and Labour does not adequately grasp - let alone address - the monstrous magnitude of South Africa's unemployment crisis.
In 1994, there were 3,6 million unemployed South Africans. In 2019, the number is over 10 million. Two adults in every five cannot find work. In 1994, the official unemployment rate was 20%. Today, the rate is 29,1%, the highest in 11 years.
Every single day, for the past 10 years, almost 900 South Africans join the ranks of the unemployed. Our youth bear the brunt of it. Yet, nearly six months after rebranding, the Departments of Employment and Labour have still not reconfigured to tackle its expanded mandate of job creation.
The department should be focusing its efforts on supporting labour- intensive sectors like light manufacturing and tourism to create new jobs and take on new workers. This is where the opportunity for growth and an access to a global market of seven billion consumers lies.
Through deregulation, the department should be making it easier for business to absorb large numbers of relatively of unskilled workers into productive employments in
technologically advanced sectors. It should be championing the cause of small business owners who are being choked by the extension of collective bargaining agreements and other onerous labour regulations.
Hon Speaker, in the face of the challenges that confront us, the observations and the recommendations contained in this report are feeble and the DA cannot support them. I thank you. [Applause.]
Hon Speaker, the EFF rejects this Budgetary Review and Recommendation, BRR, Report of the Portfolio Committee on Employment and Labour as if this department does not exist. More than 10 million people mainly youth and willing and are looking for work cannot find work. Companies are retrenching workers everyday.
ArcerlorMittal is retrenching as many as 2 000 workers presently. Sibanye- Stillwater Gold Mine is retrenching more than 10 000 workers. Even banks who are making profit are retrenching workers. More than 15 000 people are at risk of losing their jobs in the banking sectors.
Even state-owned entities like Eskom, SA Airways, SAA, Transnet and Denel are also retrenching workers.
The ruling party has no believable plan to stop these retrenchments or a plan to create new jobs. We as the EFF have asked the Minister of Employment and Labour, Mr Thulas Nxesi a question for a written reply: If whether government will ever introduce the Job Protection Bill? He said no, because the current legislation is enough.
This is how, detached, irrational and reckless our so- called leaders are.
Hon Speaker, we have an economy that put the interest of the so-called investors above everything, including human life.
Labour inspector function has completely collapsed. Workers are abused, raped and dismissed without due processes. While in many cases, they work under bad working conditions without anyone to intervene.
Transformation, especially in the private sector has failed. White men continue to dominate senior management positions. Now, the purging of black professionals in the state-owned enterprises by the Minister of Public Enterprises means that less and fewer opportunities for blacks to get employed are reduced drastically. Here we are adopting the BRR which is the divorce from the reality.
Hon member, your time has expired.
The EFF proudly rejects this BRR Report. [Applause.]
Hon Speaker and hon members, this department's mandate is to regulate South Africa's labour market for a sustainable economy. Regulating the labour market must be achieved through amongst others, the development of appropriate legislation and regulations, inspections, compliance monitoring and enforcement, social and income protection and social dialogue.
In its efforts to ensure the above, the department must also fully utilise its abilities from its internal audit and not merely await corrections or the identification of challenges by the Auditor-General.
This contributes to a slower response by the department to resolve its issues which contradicts the idea to centralise its responsibilities.
The department has also been recorded to underspend about R196 million, yet the department had not taken the appropriate steps to prevent the fruitless, wasteful and irregular expenditure. The underspending in this department indicates obvious service delivery shortfalls.
In fact this department has listed in its reports that the Productivity SA and Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration, CCMA, suffer from inadequate resources for the former and a need for additional funding for later.
Hon Speaker, the department must work with home affairs, to resolve the employment issues that saw violent attacks
against some foreign nationals in the tracking, agriculture and the hospitality sector.
The departments must perform more oversight to employers and verify the legality in terms of the documentation regarding their employees in these sectors.
The Deputy Director General Immigration Services of home affairs, Mr Jackie Mackay stated that there is little control and regulation for immigration as to where they allocated and there is no policy to integrate people when they move from rural to urban settlements.
The Department of Employment and Labour together with the Department of Home Affairs must design policies where immigrants are located in South Africa, for the first few years according to the skills requirements of the regions in South Africa.
We see other nations doing this across the world, whereby they approve skilled immigrants into their countries and conditionally locate them in regions and sectors for which they have been granted entry for. With these
concerns hon Speaker, the IFP supports the BRR Report. Thank you. [Applause.]
Hon Speaker, the unemployment rate in South Africa is sitting at an alarming 29,1%, the highest in 11 years. We have a higher than projected inflation rate and less than an ideal economic growth rate. These are not the ideal circumstances in which the department has to fulfil its expanded mandate of both implementing and monitoring the implementation of labour legislation and enabling job creation.
Afrikaans:
Die departement en die regering doen hulself ook nie 'n guns deur arbeids- en ander wetgewing te implimenteer wat juis hierdie ideale kortwiek nie.
Deur die privaatsektor keer op keer die swartskaap vir julle mislukkings uit te kryt werk lankal nie meer nie.
Daar is bepaalde tekortkominge in die Departement van Arbeid en Werkskepping en sy entiteite wat allereers
aangespreek sal moet word. So nie, sal die departement nooit in sy doel slaag nie.
Dit is 'n absolute skreiende skande dat die Ongevalle Kommissaris as entiteit van die Departement van Arbeid vir die afgelope nege jaar 'n weerhoude ouditmening van die Ouditeur-Generaal ontvang het.
Dieselfde geld vir die oudituitkomste van die werkloosheid- versekerheidsfonds en sy swak prestasie, deur sleg 63% van sy jaarteikens te behaal.
Swak bestuur aan die een kant en kortsigtige drakoniese wetgeging aan die ander kant veroorsaak dat werkloosheid bloot aanhou styg, wat weer 'n bepaalde uitwerking op die fiskus en die land se ekonomie het.
English:
Hon Speaker, the chief executive officer, CEO, of Capitec, this week, said despite the best of intentions, South Africa's Black Economic Empowerment, BEE, scheme is largely been a failure and I quote:
If you look at BEE in totality in South Africa, it hasn't worked because it should be there to help all South Africans and, unfortunately, it has only helped a couple of people.
In contravention with this statement from the CEO of one of South Africa's best performing banks, the Minister of Employment and Labour, a department which entities cannot manage to get proper audit outcomes, stated in August that harsh measures will be resorted to, to ensure a quicker transformation in the workplace.
Government must wake up. Your policies are failing leading to higher unemployment and insufficient economic growth. The FF Plus cannot support this Budgetary Review and Recommendation, BRR, Report. I thank you. [Applause.]
Hon Madam Speaker, the committee having assessed the report of this department, made the observations so as to make the department to turn things around. We have also noted the decline in industrial actions and an increase in noncompliance to legislative instruments by the employers.
An upsurge of health and safety breaches in the productive sectors that is agriculture, mining and manufacturing and also the lack of inspectors to enforce labour regulations.
The Employment Equity Commission Report delineates some of these challenges in great clarity. The committee also stressed the urgency of funding the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Conciliation, CCMA, for the purpose of discharging its duties properly.
With the minimum wage coming into effect, we are likely to see employers seeking exemptions from the department. This process may end up requiring the CCMA to intervene or mediate.
We have also noted some of the employers failing to comply with the compensation for Occupational Injuries and Diseases Act. This must be acted upon immediately by the inspectors.
The National Economic Development and Labour Council Nedlac, has to improve its capacity. It has failed to
protect massive job retrenchments that resulted in the economy contracting.
In addition Madam Speaker, Nedlac has not intervened with great efficiency to mobilise the social partners to retain jobs.
There is a great need of co-operation between the Ministries of Employment and Labour and Mineral Resources and Energy whereas on section 54, work stoppages are warranted because some of the mining companies do not enforce safety regulations. There are major implications for companies and the workers alike as work stoppages turn to affect their profit margins and jobs respectively. We support this report. Thank you.
Hon Speaker, please permit me to start by indicating that South Africa is the sixth richest country in the world. However, it is one of the poorest in the world. South Africa's riches emerge from mineral resources where more than 400 thousand people work, but are losing jobs daily and or are poorly paid.
Recommendations put before Parliament today are not new, but are recommendations tabled before the democratic Parliament over the past very many years. I here refer to 1998, to date of course. The major problem I must indicate is that those recommendations are never implemented. That is why today unemployment rate is beyond 50%.
I remember I raised this last year and it was said that unemployment rate is around 21% which is wrong and it is still wrong because like it has been empirically proven.
The young people who do not even have matric, and 72% of those people do not work. Now, these are the problems that we have, besides the very many millions that are there and are not working.
Now the ruling party has pushed and succeeded in ensuring that people believe that unemployment rate is around 29%. That is not correct. There is only one thing, that can help us at the moment and that is for the South Africans to demand that money that is being wasted daily gets properly directed to where it is supposed to.
The person who must do that is the ... [Time expired.]
Declarations of vote (Contd):
Hon Speaker, indeed, poverty, unemployment and inequality are three major challenges facing the country. In terms of the official count, 6,7 million people are unemployed in South Africa, which is 29% of everybody who could be working. In terms of the expanded definition, more than 10 million people are unemployed, or 38,5% of people who could be working.
The number of people who are employed increased by 21 000 from 16 291 000 in the first quarter of 2019, to 16 339 000 in the second quarter of 2019. Compared to the second quarter of 2018, the number of employed people increased by 25 000. These poverty lines, if accurate, indicate that extreme poverty in South Africa has, over the years, been rising and falling.
In 2006 the percentage of the population living below the food poverty line was 28,4%. In 2009, the number climbed to 33,5% in part perhaps because of the global financial
crisis. By 2011 it had fallen to 21,4%. In 2015 it climbed again to 25,4% or 13,8 million people.
The NFP, unfortunately, notes the Auditor-General's report stating that the department underspent by R196,2 million and failed to take effective steps to prevent wasteful, irregular and fruitless expenditure. The NFP also notes and is encouraged that the UIF has developed a plan to address internal controls and deficiencies and a mechanism to monitor the implementation of the plan in order to combat failure in monitoring, management and financial statements.
The NFP also notes and encourages gender parity in accordance with the department's gender equity plan to combat gender inequality. The NFP supports the BRR Report tabled here today. Thank you.
Hon Speaker, poverty, unemployment and inequality remain the three most significant challenges facing the country. These were identified by the National Development Plan, NDP, in its 2011 diagnostic report.
Raising employment through faster economic growth has become a key priority to remedy this situation.
Regrettably, the rate of unemployment continues to rise. The quarterly unemployment survey by Statistics SA shows that unemployment, in terms of its narrow definition, has surpassed 29%. In terms of the expanded definition of unemployment, we are looking at unemployment sitting at close to 40%. This is the highest jobless rate that we have had since 2008.
In response to the unemployment challenges, President Cyril Ramaphosa convened the Presidential Jobs Summit in October 2018 with government, business, labour and other social partners. This also allowed for findings by Former President's Motlanthe high-level panel, one of which was to amend the Labour Relations Act to remove the extension to the non-parties clause or to prescribe to non-parties, recommending that this should be applicable to small and medium-sized enterprises.
The ACDP also notes that there has been a commensurate increase in unemployment together with the challenges
that we have seen in Eskom. So, in order to solve the unemployment problems that we have, it is important that we look at the energy crisis because there is a correlation between the challenges that we have in energy with the unemployment that we face in South Africa. I thank you.
Hon Speaker, the Portfolio Committee on Employment and Labour has considered the performance of the department and its entities. After considering the presentation made by the department on the annual report and the input from the Auditor-General and the advisory boards, the committee has made various observations and recommendations.
With the expanded mandate of employment, the Department of Employment and Labour will be required to change its approach from mere compliance enforcement to the co- ordination of all government efforts to create jobs and reduce unemployment.
The Department of Employment and Labour will now be expected, among other things, to contribute to bringing
about a qualitative structural shift in employment. The above broad functions of the department will surely require an increase in the budget allocation to set the proper structures, repositioning reinforcement and capacity enhancement for the execution of this fresh and progressive mandate.
The department has five entities that are playing a pivotal role and a transformational developmental role in our country, and therefore they ought to be guarded jealously. The portfolio committee will constantly monitor the implementation of the Compensation Fund Action Plan, which is an instrument of improving the performance of this entity on many fronts, responding to the findings of at least three investigations that were conducted in the entity as well as improving its audit outcomes which have seen disclaimers for several years. There shall be no hesitation in taking further action in the event of satisfactory results not occurring.
The manner in which the Unemployment Insurance Fund ...
Hon member, your time has expired.
The ANC supports this BRR Report. [Applause.]
Motion agreed to (Democratic Alliance, Economic Freedom Fighters, Freedom Front Plus and African Christian Democratic Party dissenting).
Report accordingly adopted.