Date: 08/07/2003
Source: Department of Labour
Title: Mdladlana: Limpopo Imbizo: Gala dinner in Polokwane


SPEECH BY THE MINISTER OF LABOUR, MMS MDLADLANA, FOR THE GALA DINNER IN POLOKWANE DURING THE MINISTER'S LIMPOPO IMBIZO, 8 July 2003

Master of Ceremonies, the Premier, Mayors,
Members of the Executive Council,
representatives from organised labour, organised business, non-governmental organisations, the political constituencies, the media, other distinguished guests and colleagues,

It is indeed a great pleasure and honour to address you this evening.

I take this platform as we approach the 10th year of democracy in South Africa and less than a year since I last held Imbizo in Limpopo. Much has taken place since my last visit in September 2002, but much has remained the same. The ANC government's priority remains the delivery of a better life to all our people, and delivery will take place through the development of people's contracts between government and stakeholders. The importance of Limpopo to government and my Department also remains, especially considering the challenges this province presents in terms of high poverty levels, the difficult working conditions experienced by so many of our people here and the vast geographical areas.

Since the last visit new legislation has come into effect that continues and deepens the work of our ANC government. From a Department of Labour perspective, we have been engaged in far-reaching reforms aimed at restructuring the labour market. With processes such as transformation, restructuring and decentralisation, the Department ensured that also in Limpopo our labour market policies are promoting economic growth and restructuring, employment absorption, sound and stable labour relations, the elimination of workplace inequality and discrimination and the enhancement of skills development.

This Limpopo Imbizo is an opportunity for me to meet with the people of the Province, to hear directly from them how far we are in terms of meeting the ambitious goals we have set ourselves in delivering a better life. These visits give me the chance to assess both the effectiveness of our legislation and the effectiveness of my staff in the Department.

Growth and Development Summit

One of the key ways in which the Department of Labour ensures the effectiveness of the interventions it makes is through processes of social dialogue. That is incorporating labour, business and the community directly into the decision-making process. Social dialogue finds expression in institutions such as the National Economic Development and Labour Council (Nedlac), and the various commissions, such as the Commission on Employment Equity, that have been established to advise me on particular issues.

This commitment is a reflection of our government's broader commitment to the deepening of democracy throughout the country. This is not only a positive at a principled level, but also positively impacts on delivery.

An expression of this commitment is the Growth and Development Summit, which took place last month. This national event, where labour, business, government and the community, came together to develop focused interventions that would deliver targeted solutions to issues of economic growth, sustained development and job creation. These interventions were developed in the context of the recognition among social partners that the Freedom won in 1994 has brought new opportunities. The challenge is to ensure that we expand them and bring them in the reach of all our people. There is also an acknowledgement of the progress made in rebuilding our economy, but the task is not complete. The economically active population has grown faster than the jobs we created. Our economy needs more and more skilled workers and skills training is critical.

Agreements reached - with the social partners' commitment to building enduring partnerships that will address urgent challenges - can be broadly grouped into the following areas:

* All social partners have made commitments to work for more jobs, better jobs and decent work for all in specific areas
* All social partners have made commitments to work towards addressing the investment challenge in the economy in specific areas
* All social partners have made commitments to advancing equity, developing skills, creating opportunities for all and extending services, focusing on specific areas
* All social partners have made commitments to engage in local action and implementation for development in specific areas.

Government's commitments on the issue of job creation include public investment initiatives - with an emphasis on infrastructural development, particularly labour intensive projects in rural areas - and expanded public works programmes. While the issue of investment challenge will include a review of current policies that may be discouraging foreign direct investment and the implementation of the agreement to invest up to 5% of investible income of institutional funds for productive purposes. Local action and implementation for development will see an expansion in the number of MPCCs from 37 to 60 over the next 18 months and the strengthening of the Imbizo and Letsema campaigns, coupled with the strengthening of local government.

Before I expand on the implications the agreements hold for the Department of Labour, I want to emphasise that central to the agreement is the establishment of mechanisms to track the progress of the implementation of the agreement and to ensure that these agreements are adhered to.

The Department's commitments are primarily located within the advancement of equity, developing skills, creating opportunities for all and extending services, focusing on specific areas.

The Department is also committed to the delivery of a communication campaign on the Employment Equity Act, and I can assure everybody here that a significant component of this campaign - which is to be launched next month - is the enforcement of the provisions of the Act.

The Summit made a commitment on joint partnerships with business to promote learnerships in the private sector and the public service for at least 72 000 unemployed learners by May 2004. I am happy that since the Summit, Transnet has committed itself to taking on an additional 1 929 youngsters, Eskom an extra couple of hundred within its own organisation and a further 1 500 in partnership with the Department of Minerals and Energy as part of the commitment to deliver free basic electricity to households in the Eastern Cape, Limpopo and KwaZulu-Natal. At this rate we will achieve our National Skills Development Strategy target of 80 000 youngsters in learnerships a year early! This is coupled with the firm commitment by private sector employers - as well as government departments - to take on young, unemployed people into learnerships.

I wish to return to the issue of skills development shortly, because there have been significant developments in this area, which are also illustrative of the benefits that will impact on the provinces, but before I do so, I wish to touch upon the issue of inspection and enforcement services.

IES

The Department of Labour has a wide-ranging national programme of enforcement and we have established a "Service Delivery" arm of the Department under the leadership of a Deputy Director-General.

The role of this Branch is to ensure efficient, effective service delivery in the provincial offices and labour centres. We have recently undertaken a comprehensive study aimed at ensuring that labour centres are established in areas that are accessible to the public. In places where we cannot establish labour centres due to financial or infrastructural constraints we have identified visiting points. In response to the President's call that government should go to the people instead of expecting a work-seeker to wait until he or she can raise a train-fare to go to a government office, my Department deploys a cadre of staff to deliver services to people where they live, from time to time. Workers in Limpopo on a daily basis experience the benefits of this new approach. The Service Delivery Branch is also responsible for routine workplace inspections as well as blitz inspections aimed at ensuring that employers comply with labour legislation. It is heartening to announce that last year alone, a total of 87 815 inspections - with over 11 000 of these taking place in Limpopo -were carried out countrywide.

I would like to focus on a recent campaign my inspectors embarked upon. Over the past two weeks, inspectors from all the provinces have visited farms in order to ascertain compliance with labour legislation, particularly the Sectoral Determination for the Agricultural Sector, which was promulgated at the end of last year.

There has been resistance to the implementation of the Sectoral Determination, particularly those provisions relating to minimum wages. Elements within organised agriculture have described the determination as overly onerous and impossible to comply with. Certain affiliates of the mainstream commercial body went as far as to call for their members not to comply with the legislation.

I wish to put on record that despite discussions we are currently conducting with social partners on the implementation of the Sectoral Determination, the law remains in force. Just as with any other legislation, it must be adhered to. There are provisions within the determination that offer recourse to those farmers who have difficulty in meeting the requirements.

However, in the context of national organisations calling for non-compliance and media reports of mass dismissals throughout the country my inspectors launched their blitzes on 23 June. Reports that I have received from the inspectors nationally, paint a very interesting picture.

In this very Province, a total of 234 farms were visited during the first week of the blitz inspections. Over 91%- or 213 - were found to be compliant with the Sectoral Determination, including the provisions setting out the minimum wage. Of the 19 non-compliant farms, two in fact had applied for a variation to the wages. The picture painted was not completely blemish free, with problems around the application of Occupational Health and Safety Regulations, but the reports indicate that there is - at a grass roots level - a serious commitment on the part of ordinary farmers to be part of the social contract that will deliver a better life for all South Africans.

Skills Development

Last week, I took proposed amendments to the Skills Development Act to Nedlac for discussion with social partners. These amendments are designed to enhance the efficiency of our skills development programme, primarily through making the Sectoral Education and Training Authorities, more popularly known as SETAs, more accountable to me as the Minister of Labour. In so doing, we will address the problem of the mismanagement of a few SETAs tarnishing all our efforts in terms of skills development. The amendments will empower me to issue instructions to certain SETAs should there be issues of mismanagement. These amendments will also enable me to appoint an administrator, should the Seta fail to adhere to the instructions issued. The new legislation would also give the Minister discretionary powers to set the salaries and allowances of board members. Other technical changes to the Act are also on the cards.

These changes should be seen as an acknowledgement on the part of government that we could make good legislation even better. I describe the legislation governing skills development as good, because it has already made a direct impact on the lives of 35 000 people living in Limpopo who have been trained under its auspices since 1999. The benefits of skills development are obviously enjoyed by more than just the learners and trainees, but by the broader community, as businesses gain access to labour with more skills, families' income levels increase and economic growth at micro and macro levels receives a boost.

I would like to use this opportunity to outline some of the projects on which the R65 million spent on skills development in the province went to.

In 2002 the Northern Province Road Agency, together with the Department of Public Works, embarked upon the Gundo Lasho project, which rehabilitates rural roads and the maintenance of those roads thereafter. The project will facilitate access to rural villages. Within this project training is being provided on a sustained and programmatic basis to members of the community. The training, which has already been funded to the tune of R1.1 million, includes the development of both technical skills, such as kerb laying, and entrepreneurial skills empowering trainees to run their own businesses. The focus of Gundo Lasho has been on the Capricorn area, but will continue in other areas of the province during the remainder of 2003. A further R360 000 has already been allocated to the projects in other areas.

At Atok, Sekhukune - a project I visited during the previous Imbizo - close on R1.5 million has been spent on the development of business, carpentry, textile and knitting, electrical and livestock rearing skills. The beneficiaries were all members of the local community, where they worked and were trained at the local MPCC, which also provides a venue from where they can sell either their goods or services. Plots of land adjacent to the venue provide opportunities to trainees to implement their business and livestock rearing skills and farm poultry.

These are just some of the larger projects we have engaged in. In the main the skills development monies have been spent on a myriad of smaller projects, such as the income generating Moletjie Rural Women's Development project, which I had the pleasure of visiting on Monday. The members of the project bake, make dresses and do arts and crafts, and the goods they produce are sold to the local community - particularly the schools in the area and further a field. The Department of Labour has funded marketing and bookkeeping skills training for 18 people. Small fry, maybe. But multiply this small intervention by the many others that are taking place across the length and breadth of the province, and indeed the country, and one can see that this constitutes a part of the fulfilment of this government's commitment to deliver a better life for all.

This is a just a snapshot of the tasks we have been pursuing recently. Time does not permit me to detail the challenges of implementing the new Unemployment Insurance Act that came into effect last year, nor does it allow me to detail exactly how we achieved some of the following in terms of implementation, such as the way in which Limpopo officials successfully dealt with over 23 000 Unemployment Insurance applications during the previous year nor the registration of employers. I am also disappointed that I cannot detail the successful implementation of the Compensation for Occupational Injuries and Diseases Act nor provide more details on the other blitz inspections following up on Occupational Health and Safety issues. But I believe the information I have presented to you gives an indication of the extent of the Department's efforts in delivering on a better life for all South Africans. I also hope this also gives a sense of the excellent work being done in the province by the Provincial Executive Manager, Zodwa Mabaso and her team of dedicated officials.

I thank you and look forward to the remainder of the Imbizo programme in this province.

Source: Department of Labour (http://www.labour.gov.za)