(1) What number of complaints were lodged with the Inspection and Enforcement Services (IES) of his department in the Western Cape regarding the issuance of the Regulations for Hazardous Chemical Agents (HCA) since 1 January 2021;
(2) whether any alleged noncompliance with the HCA regulations specifically on farms in the specified province have been reported; if not, what is the position in this regard; if so, what are the relevant details;
(3) what number of (a) reactive inspections into alleged noncompliance with the HCA regulations on farms have been conducted and (b) proactive inspections were conducted by the IES in the province;
(4) following the specified inspections, what number of (a) findings of noncompliance on farms in the Western Cape were made by the IES inspectors and (b) written directions to comply were issued to employers where noncompliance with the provisions were found;
(5) what (a) number of and (b) sanctions, as contemplated in Section 16 of the regulations, were issued to employers for noncompliance? NW2974E
(1) Only one complaint was received from an organisation representing women in farming. The Organisation is of the view that certain chemicals are banned in Europe and is lobbying very hard to have the same chemicals banned in South Africa as they argue it has disastrous effects even with PPE.
(2) Yes – we received complaints regarding non adherence to our legislations including use ...
On what date is it envisaged that the Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) will address the extensive backlogs in the processing of UIF COVID-19 Temporary Employer-Employee Relief Scheme claims?
The Unemployment Insurance Fund processed all the Covid-19 claims for all the lockdown periods. The outstanding applications are those applications that were processed by UIF and were never paid as they failed validations and verifications. UIF is currently re-processing Covid-19 applications that were corrected and updated by employers or where employers have submitted any missing information.
This continuous processing is done by UIF to ...
What steps has his department taken to ensure that (a) domestic and (b) farm workers are paid a minimum wage as most of the specified workers are in remote areas that do not have easy access to the services of his department and most are unable to access the assistance of the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration due to various reasons?
The Department of Employment and Labour undertakes labour inspections at all workplaces including domestic households and on farms and agricultural establishments. Such labour inspections are undertaken on a pro-active basis as well as re-active basis (based on complaints received).
Advocacy initiatives are undertaken using local newspapers and radio stations (in the local languages) across all Provinces in South Africa where compliance to the National ...
With reference to unemployment in the Republic standing at 32,9% with 62,1% of youth between 15 and 25 being unemployed, what number of permanent and sustainable jobs has his department created in the past three months for the youth who are excluded from participating in the labour market and who live without dignity?
The Department of Employment and Labour (DEL), through its offices and entities, is actively involved in a number of interventions aimed at assisting work seekers to access employment opportunities, creating public employment, saving employment, providing income support, employment safety and employment peace and dialogue as all these complements employment creation.
The Department of Employment and Labour assists work seekers particularly young people to access ...
(1) What total number of the (a) Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) and (b) COVID-19 Temporary Employer/Employee Relief Scheme (TERS) claims that were lodged currently (i) in the process of being audited and (ii) are awaiting auditing;
(2) what (a) is the total number and (b) are the full details of the backlog of claims lodged by employers for the COVID-19 TERS Relief Scheme initiated in 2020 remain unprocessed? NW3110E
(1) (a) 1 646 966 UI Act claims applications were lodged from the 1st of April 2023 to date; and
(b) 138 337 COVID-19 Temporary Employer/Employee Relief Scheme (TERS) claims applications were lodged from the 1st of April 2023 to date.
(i) 10 644 COVIDTERS claims were allocated to the audit firms and 4 384 were audited so far; and
(ii) 6 260 COVIDTERS claims are still to be audited; ...
(1) With regard to the (a) Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) and (b) COVID-19 Temporary Employer/Employee Relief Scheme (TERS) Programme, what total number of (i) claims for payments to be made to employees remain unprocessed and (ii) employees are still awaiting payment since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic;
(2) on what date does he envisage that all outstanding (a) UIF and (b) COVID-19 TERS claims and payments will be fully processed to finalisation and be fully paid out? NW3111E
1 Total Number of unprocessed Payments
(a) (i)Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) = 89366
(b) (i)COVID-19 Ters = 215557 (Includes corrections and unqualified)
(ii) Employees still awaiting payment since start of Covid-19 Pandemic-
From first month of Pandemic – Mar/Apr 2020 – 3259 employees were never paid due to incorrect applications.
(2) (a) It should be noted that UIF processed all the applications for all ...
(1)With reference to the Fourth Quarter Report for the 2022-23 financial year of the Department of Social Development which indicates that primarily the National Treasury and the Department of Employment and Labour need to provide comments and inputs before Cabinet is requested for approval to regazette the Green Paper for public comments (details furnished), (a) what are the reasons that his department has not provided comments and input on the presentation as it appears to be delaying the development of the green paper on Comprehensive Social Security and Retirement Reforms and (b) on what date does his department envisage to provide their comments and input on the green paper;
(2) what is his department’s position on the (a) Green Paper and (b) National Social Security Fund within the Green Paper;
(3) what are the full and relevant details of the comments and input that his department intend to provide on the Green Paper?
The Department has provided comments prior to the recent workshop held in April 2023. After attending the April 2023 workshop, the Department through Compensation Fund identified fundamental issues that need to be resolved before providing additional comments.
In the recent document provided by DSD for comments it is apparent that the social security provided by The Compensation Fund is not fully understood e.g. the ...
With reference to the road and freight industry being dominated by foreign nations despite his acknowledgement that there is no shortage of skilled truck drivers in the Republic, as a result the inter-ministerial committee, consisting of the Ministries of Employment and Labour, Transport, Home Affairs and the Police, together with relevant stakeholders have come up with an action plan to address the grievances of local truck drivers who have continued to block national roads, what (a) is the time frame and/or number of years of implementation of the 11-stages action plan signed by the Road and Freight InterMinisterial Committee and the road and freight industry stakeholders, (b) total amount of investment has already been made to the plan and (c) are the details of the progress made to date in its implementation?
Hon. Ngcobo, the Inter-Ministerial Committee continues to be hard at work into resolving issues around road freight industry. As you are perfectly aware, because part of what you have stated in your question is that indeed we have multiple stages of implementations.
These will always be in various stages of progress. There are some that would be progressing quite well and there would be ...
Following the visit of the Portfolio Committee of Employment and Labour to the Eastern Cape where the issue of unsafe queue conditions was raised, what steps has he taken to improve and/or remedy the situation, specifically at labour centres where persons are subjected to queueing on busy streets and must stand for long hours?
Honourable Mkhonto, firstly, let me indicate to you that on this matter we do share the same concern. Secondly, let me thank you for making follow up on this issue after the Portfolio Committee on Employment and Labour conducted an oversight visit to the Eastern Cape Province. Sometimes, matters of this nature benefit from progress after the investment of some consistency on them.
It ...
With reference to the local office of the Department of Labour located at 10 Molteno Street, Goodwood, Cape Town, what are the relevant details of the (a) contact details of the office manager, (b) queue management system in place, (c) booking system used, (d) mitigation plan to shield clients from load shedding, (e) date by which the office will be receiving an alternative power supply, (f) form of assistance provided to clients in the queue during load shedding, (g) total number of fixed to establishment personnel, versus actual personnel, (h) total number of vacancies and the job title of each specified vacancy and (i) total number of backlogged applications for each category?
- Hon. Abrahams, the Department of Employment and Labour has 9 Provincial Offices, which are equivalent to the number of Provinces that the country has. This is so, even because this particular Portfolio does not have concurrence function when it comes to other spheres of government.
- Over and above that the Department of Employment and Labour has about 126 Labour Centres across the country. In ...
