2213.Mr I M Ollis (DA) to ask the Minister of Labour:
1) With regard to the budget for the Inspection and Enforcement
Services division being reduced by R59.5-million or 13.6% of the
previous budget, (a) what (i) services, (ii) staff, (iii) vehicles,
(iv) equipment or (v) other cost items will need to be cut in order
to balance the budget with reduced funding, (b)(i) what services
will be cut in order to make up the shortfall in the budget and
(ii) in which provinces and (c) will any staff be (i) retrenched,
(ii) retired, (iii) fired or (iv) redeployed elsewhere in order to
make up this budget shortfall;
The Minister of Labour replies:
The R59.5 million by which the budget was reduced during the
previous financial year was earmarked for building capacity within
the inspectorate with regard to the
specialisation/professionalization of the inspectorate. This
allocation was divided into R28 million for the first year of
implementation and R32 million as a carry through amount ( in order
to finance the costs for the second year).
The R59 million was earmarked for the compensation of employees
only and was not intended to cater for the concomitant operational
costs.
2) what impact will this large budget reduction for the Inspection and
Enforcement Services division have on service delivery such as the
(a) number of workplaces to be inspected, (b) notices issued, (c)
fines imposed or (d) legal and court action taken by her
department;
The Minister of Labour replies:
Since the R59 million was earmarked only for the compensation of
employees and not for operational costs (goods and services), the
budget cut would at a first pass not have affected the operational
costs and thus impacted on service delivery. However the Department
had already started with the filling of the newly created posts.
This therefore had the effect that the cut would impact on these
posts that were already filled when the budget cuts were affected
It would therefore also impact on the remaining compensation of
employees budget as well as the operational costs since the
internal savings that were realised in the department would not be
able to cover the compensation of employees going forward.
(3(a) how many vacancies were there in the Inspection and Enforcement
Services at the beginning of the 2014-15 financial year,
150 posts
(b) at what level is each of these vacant positions,
SR3 â 3 pupil inspectors
SR5 â 6 administration clerks
SR6 â 35 Inspectors
SR7 â 7 Inspectors and 8 administrative support staff
SR8 â 53 Inspectors and Team Leaders
SR9 â 5 Principle Inspectors
SR10 â 15 Principle Inspectors
SR11 â 4 Specialist inspectors
SR12 â 11 Specialist Inspectors
SR13 â 2 Directors
SR14 â 1 Chief Director
(c) why were these vacancies not filled,
33 posts were newly created posts where the recruitment process
were not yet finalised or the appointed candidate did not yet
resumed duty. 68 posts were vacated between December 2013 and
March 2014 due to promotions, transfers, resignations,
retirement and deaths. 49 posts were vacant for longer than 90
days.
(d) how many vacancies currently exist within the Inspection and
Enforcement Services division and
There were 147 vacant posts as at end of October 2014.
(e) when will each of the current vacancies be filled;
Some of the vacancies are in the process of being filled â this
could mean that the posts were advertised and waiting for the
closing date of the advertisement, some posts the offices are
busy with shortlisting of suitable candidates, some offices are
busy holding interviews, some offices are awaiting approval to
appoint the best suitable candidate, some offices are busy to
issue appointment letters to best candidates, some offices are
waiting acceptance from the candidate or waiting for candidate
to finish notice period at current employer and in some offices
the official assumed duty but information not yet captured on
PERSAL as the notice did not reach the Provincial office in
time.
The effect of the budgets cuts would mean that some of the
vacant posts would be frozen
4) is there a shortage of (a) vehicles, (b) computer equipment, (c)
safety equipment or (d) any other tools of trade in the
Inspection and Enforcement Services division; if not, why not;
if so, what has been done to alleviate each of the specified
problems;
The Minister of Labour replies:
(i) services,
The Inspection and Enforcement Services conducts its business
outside the office, in other words the inspector has to visit
companies in order to conduct inspections. It is imperative that
the Department therefore looks at how they plan its works and
its deliverables. In addressing these issues the Department
therefore wishes to address these concerns in the following
manner.
(ii) staff,
The department is not currently intending to retrench the
employees but to manage the filling of all vacancies.
(iii) vehicles,
The department has limited resources of vehicle even before the
cutting of the budget as most of our inspectors are sharing
vehicles. This has an impact on service delivery in addition to
the performance of the inspectors.
(iv) equipment
Whilst the Department will not expose its workers to hazards, we
will manage this aspect of the work more carefully.
(v) other cost items will need to be cut in order to balance the
budget with reduced funding,
In order to meet our commitments we have looked at how we manage
the following cost centres:
⢠Telecommunication
⢠Workshops
⢠Internal and external training
⢠Travelling, etc
(5) what facility is available to staff of the Inspection and
Enforcement Services division to raise their concerns with (a)
the Director-General of her department, (b) the Acting Director-
General of her department, (c) the Deputy Director-General of
her department and/or (d) her?
The Minister of Labour replies:
The Department of Labour has a number of mechanisms to deal with
concerns from staff.
At an institutional level, the Department has a departmental
bargaining chamber, whilst at an organizational level there are a
number of mechanisms where these issues are dealt. Further the IES
branch has established a task team to deal with matters concerning the
branch.
NW2757E