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Monday, 04 February 2019 13:34

Sowetan reports that the escape of two prisoners at the South Gauteng High Court in Johannesburg on Friday has been blamed on inexperienced court orderlies and staff shortages.

Two murder suspects, Andile Ncanyelo and Njabulo Khumalo, who were due to appear at the court, allegedly overpowered court orderlies who were escorting them from a police truck into the holding cells. Their daring escape led to the court precinct being placed under lockdown as police teams searched for them in and outside the building.

Police spokesperson Captain Kay Makhubele said police were still hunting for the pair and that they had been due to appear in court on charges of murder. But court officers who were on duty on the day told Sowetan that 16 suspects, including the two who escaped, overpowered inexperienced court orderlies. Richard Mamabolo, the Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union said the problem was that the ratio of police officials to the inmates was low.

“At times you find that there is one official who is responsible for transporting five inmates to different courts in one city. This obviously poses a danger to officials,” Mambolo said.

He said he did not know the number of court orderlies currently placed at the high court but said each court was allocated a number of officials necessary to its needs.

One officer alleged one police officer was stabbed in the arm during the scuffle with the prisoners.

The officer further said that security measures did not appear to have been taken into account on Friday as he saw at least three officers attempting to lead the inmates into the holding cells.

“A total of 16 of them overpowered the police officers who were taking them into the cells. The officers are new and have no experience. They look like they were reservists or came here straight from college,” the officer said.

“On average you find at least four police vehicles escorting a truck of inmates. On Friday there was only one vehicle and I saw only three officers at the time taking inmates into the cells,” the official said. Another official alleged there had been a severe shortage of court orderlies, which had resulted in suspects trying to escape frequently.

“The police are at fault for this escape. These kids don’t know what they are doing. There has been a request sent to the police for more staff to be brought but they do not seem to entertain this request,” said the official.

Makhubele said police had not received a request to beef up security at the high court. “We are not aware of any requests made,” he said.

Makhubele said the pair had not yet been rearrested. Meanwhile, investigations into their escape continues.

This is the second time prisoners have es1aped from the same court in less than two months. Mongezi Mcunukelwa and Sbonelo Nkosingiphe Thwala escaped from the court in December. Mcunukelwa was rearrested six days later and was slapped with two life sentences for the deaths of Mpho Richard Morabe and Mokete Ben Moloi, while murder-accused Thwala remains at large. Makhubele said Ncanyelo was due to appear in connection with a murder he allegedly committed in Randfontein on the west rand in 2017, while Khumalo was to appear for a murder charge opened in Kliptown, Soweto, last year. Friday’s court roll revealed that Ncanyelo was scheduled to appear alongside two other accused for sentencing.

• The original of this report by Tankiso Makhetha appeared on page 5 of Sowetan of 4 February 2019

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Monday, 04 February 2019 09:36

Mark Cutifani, chief executive of Anglo American Plc, writes that he has dedicated more than 40 years of my life to a wonderful industry that has helped lift countries out of poverty, providing the raw materials which make modern life possible and playing a significant role in the world’s economic activity.

But mining is also an industry at a crossroads as society’s expectations of business rightly grow. For us in mining, we must never think that the status quo is enough. We must strive for step changes in how we mine, how we can enable the full benefits and how we engage with society as a whole.

Put simply, we are the custodians of many of the world’s precious resources. It is with that great responsibility that we must lead our industry with the expectation that mining should be a trailblazer in social and community developments. In our industry, sustainability is not a luxury, it is a business imperative.

At Anglo American, we have recently set out an ambitious sustainability strategy, to transform how our stakeholders experience our business, both locally and globally. Our approach goes far beyond compliance with mining law or regulatory requirements. It is about making a more strategic, holistic, positive and lasting impact – sustainable business in its full and proper sense.

Partnership and engagement are at the heart of this transformative approach. Our efforts to realise longterm and truly sustainable development opportunities are centred on what we call collaborative regional development.

This innovative approach identifies socio-economic development opportunities with the greatest potential in a region, through spatial planning and analysis, and was originally inspired by the Kellogg Innovation Network’s Development Partner Framework.

Spatial planning enables us to start addressing issues in space and context. We can gather, collate, clean, improve and analyse large quantities of spatially referenced data from across a single region. This integrated approach supports us to answer such questions as what and where are the economic opportunities or social challenges? And how are they inter-related?

This work creates the catalyst for partnerships with a broad range of stakeholders, from business to government, researchers to practitioners, and from community representatives to faith groups. By working through partnerships, we are better able to deliver on our commitment to help catalyse and facilitate long-term, sustainable development in our host regions, far beyond the life of the mine.

We began this approach in 2016 at Mogalakwena, our largest platinum operation in the Limpopo province of South Africa. And we are now considering ways to extend it to other countries, including Botswana, Peru and Colombia.

At Mogalakwena, we work with a broad range of stakeholders, including the charity World Vision, the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, planning firm Dobbin International, mining company Exxaro Resources and the Office of the Premier in Limpopo Province. A dedicated support organisation staffed by representatives from these partners ensures we all pursue a co-ordinated agenda, measure impact consistently and communicate openly.

It is early days, but we have a chance to work towards the longterm socio-economic development of this region in South Africa. We have already begun pilots in supplier development, agro-processing, the biodiversity economy and access to information technology. And we are exploring other opportunities.

The upside is clear as such a strategy could create substantial economic benefit and employment across Limpopo province. Collaboration isn’t just the right thing to do; it makes good business sense for everyone.

As with any new approach, we have learnt a great deal. First, we’ve recognised that focusing solely on development closest to the mine is not a recipe for success. There is a much wider area of impact that we have a responsibility to consider, which also has a bearing on the local infrastructure and our own.

Second, as collaboration evolves, our partners are discovering that the time frames of different parties can be restrictive. For many organisations, it is tempting to think in short-term cycles. But in reality, we cannot be particularly strategic in short time spans or deliver the most effective outcomes. We need to look at socio-economic development in a different way, where we try to lead developments over a much longer time frame.

Of course, the realities of collaborating with disparate partners can be challenging. Global organisations are usually not geared up for working in a truly collaborative way at the regional level. However, we are already seeing the situation shift in a positive direction within our industry.

Other businesses, including those from the tourism, pharmaceutical and agricultural sectors, are also recognising the intrinsic value of this approach. We need to be working together across industrial sectors, which share a physical space, to maximise the benefits that can be achieved.

In collaborative regional development, the various parties involved are all accountable to their own constituents, which will inevitably mean different organisations have particular

The original of this article appeared on page 16 of Business Report of 4 February 2019

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Wednesday, 30 January 2019 03:36

Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it, in a different form, in very different circumstances. Prescribed assets have been given a rough time since the ANC suggested in their manifesto that their reintroduction be investigated. Handled properly, specifically by experts, under a proper mandate, fit-for-purpose prescribed assets may prove a better solution than the alternatives.

The composition and extent of the liabilities of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) is clearly inappropriate and not sustainable. The problem has got so big it is not easily soluble within the current system, given the state of our sovereign balance sheet and the prospects for our income statements. Some of the funding has to be spent on the past, and that requires force, it seems.

Eskom has been characterised as too big to fail — of course it is, but so is the whole integrated state machinery, obviously, so we have to solve everything — not just to avoid failure, but to invite the prospect of success.

Raising capital outside of the system is part of the solution, but it comes at a price and is not without its unintended consequences.

Privatisation is the common cry. I am not convinced. If we introduce equity capital (either local or international) we’ll have to offer a market-risk return. In an economically polarised society it’s not that simple. SOEs, by their very nature, have a mixture of commercial and public service mandates. We can’t simply maximise return on shareholders’ funds. Whether those mandates are being efficiently executed now or not is a separate matter — we’re arguing funding here, not management. If they were indeed well managed, how should they be funded?

Foreign direct investment is required. We need capital from outside the ecosystem, but we shouldn’t sell state assets to foreign investors — we’ve learnt that lesson. We need to create state capacity, not entrench dependencies, that much is obvious.

We could increase taxes — passing the burden from the electricity users (or whatever service we’re talking about) to the taxpayers at large. Given the skewed tax base, I wonder how different the impact would be on the pool of capital that prescribed assets would indirectly target anyway?

We could prescribe a 15%-per-annum increase for the next three years and watch how that ruins the economy and broadly erodes the tax base.

Whichever way we solve it will require an imposition on the natural market forces of asset allocation. The solution must address the cause.

The system isn’t the answer either. The government takes all the risk and established financial capital gets all the returns, further entrenching inequality.

Essentially, established commercial banks lend money to SOEs against a National Treasury guarantee. Completing the circle, you’ll find that these same banks take deposits from the public to fund their assets (loans), including those risk-free, government-underwritten loans to SOEs, at a substantial margin, not justified by the risk.

The net result is a transfer of value from the relatively poor citizens of SA to the rich owners of capital, underwritten by the state. With something like R500bn of government guarantees in issue (albeit not fully utilised) there is a lot of money in the mix. We need to think about it differently.

Instead of underwriting the banks, or the capital market investors (who are surely clever and capable enough to look after themselves), why don’t we underwrite the savings of our people directly? Instead of putting your money in the bank, why not be able to invest it directly in government-underwritten prescribed assets, at a retail level? There is more than enough space in the retail interest-rate structure to substantially increase the “deposit rate” to individuals and simultaneously lower the cost of funding to the SOEs. The risk to the state is no different, it would just cost less.

More asset managers than you’d expect would welcome this asset class as part of their investment portfolios, given the problems it will solve for the very companies they choose to invest in anyway, and the blended risk-return it adds.

If pension funds don’t want the prescribed assets, they could simply unitise them into the retail market and make some extra money providing liquidity. We have the national infrastructure to do this.

It is obvious that this capital should be raised and managed into properly costed, specifically identified projects that will be professional managed, in an accountable way.

Let’s do it?

The original of this opinion piece by Mark Barnes appeared at BL Premium (paywall access only)

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Monday, 28 January 2019 14:43

The Star writes that, with the Tshwane ANC having already declared it wants embattled city manager Moeketsi Mosola to step down amid the GladAfrica tender scandal, the spotlight will shift to the EFF.

During the last council sitting, in November, a motion brought by mayor Solly Msimanga to suspend Mosola was deferred to this month.

With the council sitting on Thursday, Msimanga is expected to table the Auditor-General’s 2017/18 unqualified audit report.

After the sitting, he will vacate his office to focus solely on his role as Gauteng premier candidate for the DA in the general elections.

At the last sitting, both the EFF and ANC agreed that the matter be deferred, without giving any reasons. It will be seen this week if the EFF will follow in the footsteps of the ANC and support the motion to have Mosola suspended for a series of misdemeanours.

In the leaked draft report from the Attorney-General, it was found that Tshwane’s controversial multibillion rand contract with GladAfrica was irregular. The report presents the final financials for the period July 1, 2017 to June 28 last year.

Mosola has fought off efforts to suspend him. He has denied any wrongdoing and successfully blocked the tabling of a Bowmans report into the tender award after obtaining a court interdict in the Labour Court.

The report found that Mosola had allegedly awarded the tender without following due process.

The Attorney-General report leaked last week effectively blamed Mosola for issuing the tender outside the legal prescripts in November 2017.

The project management contract has been at the centre of political bickering between the DA and EFF in the council. The EFF has consistently supported Mosola against allegations of wrongdoing related to the three-year contract. The party also objected to two attempts by Msimanga to suspend Mosola over the allegations of tender irregularities.

EFF leader Julius Malema previously said his party would not support Mosola’s removal or suspension until it was presented with tangible evidence of wrongdoing. “If there is evidence against Mosola, he will go ‘as in yesterday’,” Malema said at the time.

During a media briefing last week, Malema said EFF councillors would take part in the tabling of the GladAfrica report in council. “We hold everyone accountable. Institutions like the Auditor-General help us to hold everybody accountable. We will be there, and once it comes from the A-G, then it will be something tangible. We will deal with it,” he said.

Malema dismissed claims that the EFF had links with GladAfrica. “We have nothing to hide. We have no relationship with GladAfrica. We didn’t bring GladAfrica into Tshwane. We don’t bring any company to any municipality,” he said.

Mosola has refused to be drawn into calls by the ANC for him to step down. He would not be drawn into commenting on whether the city would start legal processes to nullify the contract, for which R317 million has already been paid, according to the A-G’s report.

Mosola also kept mum on the possibility of recouping the money from GladAfrica.

Asked about the possibility of nullifying the contract, finance MMC MareLise Fourie said: “We are waiting for the final report and we will follow the right procedures. Remember, the tender was irregular… to set the tender aside you have to go to a court of law. It is exactly the same thing we did with the Peu electricity smart meters.”

Msimanga’s spokesperson Samkelo Mgobozi said it was premature to contemplate initiating legal processes with a view to nullifying the tender. “We must explore what the options are first.”

In a media statement, GladAfrica Group said: “We… will wait for the City of Tshwane to furnish us with the findings or contents of the A-G’s management report before we comment on the matter.”

The original of this report by Rapula Moatshe appeared on page 2 of The Star of 28 January 2019

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Monday, 28 January 2019 11:31

Theto Mahlakoana writes that the hard-fought right of workers to be consulted on workplace services that affect their welfare, such as catering and company transport, has been hijacked by corruption and self-enrichment.

The commission of inquiry into state capture heard last week from former Bosasa COO Angelo Agrizzi how union leaders were bribed to secure contracts worth millions of rand for Bosasa in the companies where they are organised.

The practice is all too common, current and former leaders told Business Day, indicating that it dates back to the 1980s when outsourcing was introduced for services such as catering and later for transport in South African mines and other big industrial plants such as those owned by Sasol.

The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) was among the organisations that fought to have a stake in the appointment of the service providers, stating that they wanted to have a say in everything that affects workers, including the quality of food.

However, this virtue became the gateway for shop stewards to cut deals with competing companies.

In instances where employers awarded contracts to service providers other than the shop stewards’ preferred bidder, workers would be galvanised to strike, forcing employers to buckle under pressure.

Agrizzi mentioned the names of some of Cosatu’s oldest unions including the NUM, claiming that officials had benefited from tenders that were irregularly awarded to Bosasa by private companies and government departments.

He said the NUM’s former Kloof Gold Mine branch chair, the late Jackson Mafika, was paid bribes by his company to sway decisions over catering contracts in its favour.

Although the NUM said it will investigate the revelations, insiders told Business Day that any shock expressed at the implication of its officials in corrupt dealings is disingenuous.

The corruption is embedded, with branch leaders in mining unions on the gravy train, said a source.

Agrizzi told the commission that a trade unionist from the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu) had also received a bribe at GoldFields’ Kloof mine.

The revelations expose another layer of complexity in the persistent violence that has marked the competition for members on the mines. Dozens of lives have been snuffed out by bullets as the rivalry between the NUM and its splinter union, Amcu, raged.

Key to winning the power to influence contracts is for the union to secure majority status, which shuts out rival unions and gives shop stewards access to service providers. The lucrative nature of the position also explains the violent rivalry within unions to elect shop stewards.

The Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union rejected claims by Agrizzi that a general secretary of the union was promised R1m for his part in dodgy deals.

Agrizzi also testified that Simon Mofokeng, general secretary of the Chemical‚ Energy‚ Paper‚ Printing‚ Wood and Allied Workers Union (Ceppawu), also a Cosatu affiliate, gave Bosasa inside information for a contract at Sasol.

Mofokeng has over the years fought off numerous court battles, including the labour registrar’s attempts to place Ceppwawu under administration for several irregularities in an attempt to remain at the helm of the dysfunctional union.

He was replaced at the 2018 congress.

Cosatu general secretary Bheki Ntshalintshali said the federation does not have a policy to deal with leaders of affiliates who abuse their positions of influence.

He conceded, however, that the revelations threaten the integrity of Cosatu and its members in the light of an already worrying trend, which has seen union investment companies become the source of instability and infighting.

“This is a new area; we never knew we would come to this stage and as a result, we will have to propose policies on how these issues should be treated. We’ll have to discuss it in terms of protecting the integrity of the organisation because it’s not just influence but corruption too,” said Ntshalintshali.

He said the issues will be discussed at Cosatu’s upcoming special central executive committee meeting scheduled for next week.

The original of this article is at BL Premium (paywall access only)

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Monday, 28 January 2019 11:13

Irvin Jim, general secretary of the National Union of Metalworkers of SA (Numsa) writes that union has been fighting the ANC’s nefarious agenda to destroy and privatise Eskom and other state-owned enterprises (SOEs).

This week, members of the National Union of Mineworkers and Numsa staged a lunchtime picket at Eskom’s headquarters in Johannesburg to protest against looming retrenchments at the SOE and to reject the independent power producers (IPP) programme.

Last month, Eskom retrenched senior management staff. It embarked on this process without consulting unions and it is likely that job shedding will continue.

Together with government, which is a shareholder at Eskom, the executive management team at the electricity public utility has failed to turn it around. Instead, they have looted it and brought it to the brink of collapse. They have now identified privatisation as a way of covering up for their ineptitude and corruption.

The recent ANC lekgotla recommended that Eskom be restructured and broken into generation, transmission and distribution units.

In the name of “efficiency”, thousands of workers will be retrenched so that the politically connected capitalist elite of the ANC can continue to enrich themselves. One need only examine the renewable energy project endorsed by government – the IPP programme – for evidence of the state’s blatant disregard for the working class and the poor.

Eskom’s own studies showed that continuing with the project would lead to the closure of five power stations and the loss of 100 000 jobs.

The IPP agreements were signed without a social plan in place for Mpumalanga, whose economy is almost entirely dependent on the existence of coal-fired power stations.

This will deepen the crisis of unemployment and poverty in a country where the expanded unemployment rate is 37%, and where more than half the population lives in abject poverty.

We are convinced that the load shedding that happened late last year was a ruse created to deepen the crisis to justify privatisation. At 23% reserve margin, which is higher than the 19% required by the National Energy Regulator of SA, there should have been no need for load shedding.

The leadership of Eskom has absolutely no idea how to run the power utility and its power stations, and its ineptitude is the reason we are subjected to systematic blackouts, euphemistically called “load shedding”.

Businesses have shut down because of blackouts and it has cost the country billions in revenue and in jobs that we will never recover.

In 2008, Eskom was mired in scandal when it emerged that some of its executives personally benefited from blackouts through the increased cost of coal. The leadership of Eskom has a history of abusing this process for its own selfish benefit.

WHAT IS TO BE DONE?

The IPP project must be scrapped immediately, in favour of a “just transition” from fossil fuels to renewable energy. This transition must be driven by the working class, which must benefit directly from any renewable energy project. The transition must be state-owned and state-controlled.

History has shown us that privatisation is not beneficial because it always leads to massive job cuts and, because profit is the motive, it translates to higher costs for the consumer. More than two decades after the end of apartheid and the majority of people continue to be denied access to electricity because it is too costly.

We know that the future of the economy lies in the growth of the manufacturing sector and in pursuing a job-led industrial strategy.

The working class majority can never escape the shackles of inequality and poverty if we continue on this disastrous path. We cannot keep surrendering our power to the capitalist elite and hoping for a different outcome. The Socialist Revolutionary Workers’ Party (SRWP) will put the working class first and will pursue an agenda in its interests. More than two decades of ANC capitalist rule have shown us that deviating from the working class has disastrous consequences.

The original of this article by Irvin Jim appeared on page 2 of City Press Business of 27 January 2019

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Monday, 28 January 2019 05:24

ANA reports that rising municipal debt is no longer just an Eskom problem, according to the utility’s chief financial officer.

“Rising municipal debt coupled with Eskom’s poor financial and operational performance poses a systemic risk to the sustainability of the company,” the state-owned entity’s CFO, Calib Cassim, said this week.

He was speaking in Bloemfontein on Wednesday at the National Energy Regulator of SA’s (Nersa) public hearings for Eskom’s three-year tariff application.

He said the Eskom board had assessed the group’s ability to continue as a going concern and had considered a number of mitigating strategies and actions to address the risks identified.

“Eskom cannot solve the financial and operational sustainability challenges it faces alone.

“Eskom’s turnaround is a journey highly dependent on the active involvement of the shareholder, Nersa and other stakeholders including customers.”

Thys Moller, Eskom’s general manager of customer services, said municipal debt rose 80% over the past 18 months, reaching R17 billion by the end of September last year. Soweto’s debt, including interest charges, rose to R17 billion during the same period.

“Eskom continues to participate in the interministerial task team process with a view to finding lasting solutions with other stakeholders,” said Möller.

He added that Eskom had to date installed more than 80 000 split prepayment meters in Soweto and that it would continue to cut off defaulters.

Cassim said Eskom had made every effort to control its operating expenditure, but it needed more revenue from price increases and balance sheet support from the shareholder. The 15% tariff increase over three years it was applying for wouldn’t cover its debt commitments in full.

“The shortfall cannot be met by reducing costs alone and while some have pointed Eskom to the debt market, further debt adds to the problem. In the period 20072008 to 2017-18, Eskom’s debt has gone up ten-fold while prices have increased five-fold.”

The department of energy, via the electricity pricing policy, had indicated Eskom should have reached a tariff level of over R1/ kW/hr last year, he added.

The original of this report appeared on page 5 of The Citizen of 25 January 2019

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Tuesday, 22 January 2019 12:12

The Citizen reports that labour inspections would be conducted at all Mugg & Bean outlets, according to the Bargaining Council for the Restaurant, Catering and Allied Trades. This followed The Citizen’s report on the plight of waitrons at various franchises in Johannesburg.

Maggie Pooe, the council’s general secretary, said the inspections were to ensure compliance to the council’s collective agreement rules.

Trade union federation Cosatu has demanded answers from the body, following the report, and the two bodies were understood to be in continuous engagement on the matter.

The federation was outraged by allegations that waitrons were made to pay a breakage fee among other deductions, despite not earning an actual salary. According to the council, a deduction is only permitted with the written consent of the employee.

More waitrons have since complained to The Citizen, suggesting that even more Mugg & Bean outlets were breaking labour regulations, alleging that they did not earn a minimum wage.

According to the council, employees can be remunerated on a commission, but such a remuneration cannot be less than the minimum wage rate prescribed by the council. As of July last year, this amounted to R20.50 an hour.

Last week, the franchisers effectively denied responsibility for the practices of their franchisees, saying all Mugg & Bean outlets were obliged to comply with the law.

One waitron’s account of working conditions at a Mugg & Bean near Midrand painted a bleak picture of what waitrons have endured there over the past year.

“For starters, on Sundays we have to arrive at 6.15am to scrub the restaurant, for free. We only start trading at 7am. We also pay breakage and the runner as well.”

The waitron, whose identity is known to The Citizen but is being kept confidential as the person fears a backlash, said staff had to pay a R10 breakage free every day they work.

“Saturday and Sunday, we also have to contribute R15 each day to pay a runner. We get paid 3% commission only. We don’t get Sundays or public holiday benefits. Our average monthly salary is between R1 100 and R1 500, if you are fortunate enough you get up to 1800.”

The restaurant apparently makes roughly R400,000 to R500,000 monthly and waiters’ sales went up to about R60 000.

Waitrons in this establishment, according to the source, did not have a specific pay day.  “We only receive our salaries on or after the 5th of every month. If you ask about the late payment, you get told that you’re making tips every day, stop complaining.”

Complaints relayed to The Citizen suggest that the problem went further than just Mugg & Bean. One former employee of a well-known chain restaurant in Boksburg said their experience was nothing short of slave labour.

“No labour laws are being practiced there. And the worst part is that foreigners without papers are being used. If you report these guys to the labour department nothing happens,” he said.

While the prescribed minimum wage for the restaurant and catering industry was R20.50 per hour, the average income for a waitron in South Africa was R15 per hour, according to PayScale.

Last week, The Citizen reported on Mugg & Bean waitrons who did not receive salaries, but were paid a 3% commission, leaving the waitron to carry the risk of not earning a minimum wage every month.

The original of this report by Simnikiwe Hlatshaneni appeared on page 5 of The Citizen of 21 January 2019

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Monday, 21 January 2019 12:06

Sowetan reports that a group of former Sasol employees is exploring its legal options after the company’s black economic empowerment scheme paid them less than they had expected. The retired employees are complaining that they have been robbed of an opportunity to benefit from the Sasol Inzalo empowerment scheme at the company that they worked for most of their lives. The group claims they were allocated 850 shares each by the company in the Inzalo scheme in 2008.

The broad-based black economic empowerment scheme matured last year. The former workers, who left the company for various reasons, including voluntary retrenchment and early retirement, said they thought the scheme was doing well as the company paid them dividends twice a year during the lifespan of Inzalo.

The group’s chairperson Negros Mbowana told Sowetan that they were in the process of initiating legal action against the multinational. “Sasol came up with a new scheme last year called Khanyisa to replace Inzalo and excluded us from it. We feel they should have included us because Inzalo failed,” he said.

The employees said they were told by the company they would not receive any payment because Inzalo did not do well.

The news devastated them because they had planned their lives around the payout. Msebenzi Mthimunye, 66, who took early retirement in 2016, said his wife wanted to file for divorce when he told her that he would not be receiving the Inzalo payout. He had worked for the company for 31 years.

“My wife did not believe me, she thought she was living with a crook.  Our families had to intervene. I’d planned to settle some of my debts with the money and when I couldn’t, my wife thought I was hiding the money,” he said. Mthimunye said he used most of his pension payout to renovate his house.

Sasol spokesperson Matebello Motloung said each employee received approximately R57,000 in dividends payout over the 10-year period of the Sasol Inzalo scheme. Motloung said the Sasol share price had not increased sufficiently over the 10 years. “...For there to be any payout for employees, the Sasol share price needed to be R905 per share. The Sasol share price on June 4 2018 was R479 per share.” Motloung said ex-employees who were not employed by Sasol on June 1 2018 were ineligible to participate in the Sasol Khanyisa transaction. The explanation, however, brought little comfort to the retired employees.

The original of this report by Pertunia Mafokwane appeared on page 9 of Sowetan of 21 January 2019

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Monday, 14 January 2019 04:52

Saturday Star reports that Police Minister Bheki Cele has condemned the killing of a police officer and the wounding of another in the Free State town of Koffiefontein.

“Attacking a member of the South African Police Service is an attack on the state. Safety of our men and women in blue remains high on the agenda of the SAPS and is at the heart of the SAPS’s strategic imperatives to ensure the safety of our members. Police members are a national asset and they need to be protected by all of us, including members of the community,” said Cele.

The incident happened on Thursday evening when police, while out on patrol, spotted a suspect vehicle on Dassiekop farm. Police realised that the vehicle belonged to Coenraad Badenhorst, a neighbouring farmer who was heading to the farm of Paul Nel – a man he had threatened in the past.

A warrant officer phoned Nel to tell him that Badenhorst was heading to his farm, but while she was talking to him she heard noises and then the phone went dead.

Police then mobilised officers from the nearby police station, but when they arrived at the farm, they found Nel’s body on the front porch. He had been shot in the head.

Badenhorst then opened fire on the police from bushes near the house.

Constable Vuyani March was killed when he was shot in the head. Sergeant George Calvert was shot in the face and rushed to Kimberley Hospital. Police returned fire, hitting Badenhorst, who died on his way to hospital.

Police spokesperson Colonel Thandi Mbambo said Badenhorst had threatened other farmers in the area. “This conflict appeared to be over water rights,” said Mbambo.

Police are investigating further. | Staff Reporter

The original of this report appeared on page 5 of Saturday Star of 12 January 2019

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Tuesday, 08 January 2019 13:59

The Star reports that Labour Minister Mildred Oliphant has issued regulations exempting employers who are unable to pay the national minimum wage that was passed by the National Assembly last year.

The regulations, which came into effect on January 1, are contained in a notice published in a government gazette in line with the new legislation.

In the notice, Oliphant said an employer may apply to a delegated authority who is a director-general for exemption from paying the minimum wage.

“An exemption may be granted if the delegated authority is satisfied that the employer cannot pay the minimum wage and if every employee representative trade union representing one or more of the affected workers has been consulted or, if there is no such trade union, the affected workers have been meaningfully consulted” Oliphant said.

She said the director-general may grant exemptions only from the date of application and specifying the period for which it was granted, which may not exceed 12 months. The employer would be required to pay no less than 90% of the national minimum wage.

Oliphant also said the exemption may be considered if the employer complied with statutory payments, which may not be limited to the Unemployment Insurance Fund, Compensation Fund and any applicable bargaining council agreement.

However, she said the director-general may withdraw the exemption if satisfied that the employer provided false or incorrect information when applying for the exemption, or if the employer’s financial position improved.

“Any affected person may apply to the delegated authority for the withdrawal of the exemption notice by lodging an application on the national minimum wage exemption system in the required form.”

The regulations state that such an online database should be established.

The director-general is expected to publish an annual report detailing the number of applications made, granted and refused; the number of employers and workers subject to the exemption; the withdrawal of exemptions and sectors affected.

Meanwhile, Oliphant has also issued guidelines on balloting for strikes in line with the recent amendment to the Labour Relations Act.

The guidelines say a member of a union organisation may not be disciplined or have their membership terminated for refusing to participate in strike action.

It also says there is no requirement for a union to obtain the consent of an employer to hold a ballot unless stipulated in a collective agreement.

“Reasonable notice must be given to members of the holding of a ballot.”

The guidelines also say there is no requirement for a union to permit employer observers at a ballot or employ independent scrutineers to conduct or observe the ballot.

The director-general is expected to issue a directive to those unions whose constitution does not provide for a secret ballot before embarking on strike action.

The original of this report by Mayibongwe Maqhina appeared on page 7 of The Star of 8 January 2019

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Tuesday, 08 January 2019 12:26

The Mercury reports that the Democratic Nursing Organisation of South Africa (Denosa) has threatened to take the KwaZulu-Natal health department to court, for not permanently employing about 190 nurses after four years of training, including community service.

Mandla Shabangu, Denosa provincial secretary, said this year the department has not hired a single fully qualified nurse. He said this was despite the dire shortage of nurses in health facilities around the province.

“Denosa in KZN will take the Provincial Department of Health to court over its failure to absorb nurses, who have completed their year of community service, into the full-time employment of the department as per the agreement,” he said.

Shabangu said, normally, trainee nurses enter into an agreement with the department that stipulates that they will be employed once the training is completed.

“The agreement states that after four years of training, which includes one year of community service, the nurses will be employed by the department for a time equal to the time they spent training,” he said.

However, Shabangu said the department informed the nurses at the last minute that they were not going to be employed. He added that the union has approached the department for answers.

“The department should make its intentions clear on whether or not it intends to employ the nurses, which should have been done on January 1,” he said.

An alternative to employing the nurses, said Shabangu, was for the department to release the nurses from their obligation to pay the department for funding their studies.

“If the department chooses not to employ them, this will forfeit the service of hundreds of nurses,” Shabangu said.

He said any amendment, to the original agreement concluded with the nurses, should be stated in writing. The organisation has given the department until January 11 to make its intention known. “We will be left with no option but to approach the court of law,” Shabangu said.

KZN Department of Health spokesperson Ncumisa Mafunda said the department has not employed the nurses because they are identifying vacant and funded posts.

She said another issue, regarding nursing posts, was that there were nurses, who had done the bridging course from staff nurse to professional nurse, who also needed posts.

“The department is looking to identify (posts) for both these groups,” Mafunda said.

The original of this report by Karen Singh appeared in The Mercury of 8 January 2019

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Monday, 07 January 2019 07:14

City Press reports that a large part of the South African economy will be exempted from the new national minimum wage (NMW), which came into effect this week. Final regulations on exemption from the NMW were released quietly on December 19, cutting the wage floor from the muchpublicised R20 an hour to R18 an hour for qualifying companies.

The threshold for qualifying is set too low, according to organised labour.

At the same time, organised business has criticised the limited nature of the exemption as being “completely random” and useless to employers who still cannot afford to pay workers R18 an hour.

There is no further exemption from the NMW other than the 10% drop from R20 to R18.

A NMW of R18 leads to a monthly wage of R3 096 instead of R3 440, based on a 40-hour week.

The regulations create a series of tests companies can use to qualify for exemption from the NMW, based on profitability and solvency.

City Press calculations indicate large parts of the formal economy qualify for the exemption, based on the only available national survey of company financials – Stats SA’s annual financial statistics. Based on these numbers, large parts of the manufacturing and construction industries qualify for exemption.

Separate tests for households and nonprofit organisations will allow them to pay a lower NMW to domestic workers and nonprofit workers.

The system allows for farm workers to be paid R16.20 an hour instead of the normal R18 in that sector.

Likewise, the normal NMW for domestic workers of R15 can be lowered to R13.50 if a household is exempted.

When is R20 too much?

The exemption rules allow a lower NMW on six bases. As a starting point, any employer operating at a loss is automatically exempt from the R20 NMW.

More importantly, even companies making a profit can be exempted if their return on assets – according to a prescribed formula – falls under 6% and they also pass a series of tests of their financial strength.

This 6% level was a major bone of contention when the exemption rules were negotiated at the National Economic Development and Labour Council (Nedlac) last year.

The labour department initially wanted to make it 8% in line with business’ demands and labour argued for at most 5%. The final regulations settled on 6%.

Incidentally, this is the average return on assets in the economy as a whole, according to the annual financial statistics for 2017 – the latest available. This shows that much of the economy would be eligible for exemption.

The difference between 8% and 6% is, however, enormous. If the threshold had been 8%, the infamously low-wage retail sector would have qualified for exemption, according to City Press’ analysis of the annual financial statistics.

With 6% and the further tests prescribed by the regulations, 59 of the 258 sectors covered by the annual financial statistics qualify for exemption based only on the lowest three hurdles for exemption.

That means they get exempted without having to show the actual effect that the wage increase would have on them. This includes much of the manufacturing sector and the construction industry.

Companies with returns on assets higher than 6% can still get exempted if they can prove that the new higher wage would cause them to suffer losses.

The extent of this situation cannot be determined without access to company payroll data.

These are high-level aggregated statistics and, within each sector, there would necessarily be companies that are doing better and companies that are doing worse.

The overall figures, however, show how low the bar has been set for exemption from the NMW.

‘Arbitrary’

Despite evidently covering a large part of the economy, the NMW exemption rules are nowhere near what organised business wanted.

Kaizer Moyane, the business convener at Nedlac and social policy chair at Business Unity SA, said the exemption is “arbitrary” and fails to take into account real affordability.

If you accept that an employer cannot pay R20, but then say it must pay R18 without assessing if that is more feasible, the whole exemption system becomes meaningless, he told City Press.

“Even if you do exempt a large part of the economy, you still have the affordability problem.”

Business last met with the department on December 7 to express concerns about the then draft of the regulations, he said.

Their objections were evidently ignored as the final regulation still contains the main prescriptions about which business has objected.

The exemption system requires applicant employers to have two years of financial statements. This means startup companies are automatically refused exemption, said Moyane.

Also, an exemption process based on past financial performance would be unable to take into account future events, such as the end of a contract, he said.

“We said we want a simplified process that works for small businesses.”

Another gripe is that the NMW regulations do not allow mass applications by employer groups on behalf of all their members.

Instead, the regulations permit employer groups to make applications for their members – but only one at a time.

“That simply makes the employer group an administrator,” said Moyane.

‘Gigantic loophole’

At the negotiations on the exemption system last year, union federation Cosatu called the proposed test for exemption at 8% of returns on assets a “gigantic loophole for the entire NMW system”.

It claimed that “most companies” would be exempted if that test stayed in place.

In a submission at the time, the labour federation argued that this number should be lower than 5%.

The SA Clothing and Textile Workers’ Union’s industrial policy officer Ettiene Vlok told City Press this week that 6% was still too high and that many “undeserving companies” would get exempted.

It was not clear why the department chose 6%, he said. “Our concern is that giving exemptions is already unique and contrary to what the International Labour Organisation recommends.

“If you are going to have exemptions, they do not have to be generous,” Vlok said.

As things stood, an “enormous” number of companies would likely qualify for exemption, he said.

Another problem for labour is that the regulations allow third parties, such as employer federations, to apply for exemptions on behalf of their members.

This would most likely lead to the creation of groups that “fill in exemption forms from morning to night”.

“This is not theoretical – this is what has actually happened in the past,” said Vlok, referring to exemption processes for other centrally determined wages such as South Africa’s sectoral determinations.

Although organised business has complained about limiting the exemption to paying R18 instead of R20, Vlok said that there had to be a limit.

“It is meant to be a national minimum wage and the R20 has already been eroded by inflation since it was first proposed,” he said.

Cosatu would monitor the scale of exemptions this year and take the issue up again when the new NMW commission deliberates on the first year of the wage floor, he said.

The original of this report by Dewald van Rensburg appeared on page 15 of City Press of 6 January 2019

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Monday, 07 January 2019 04:30

BL PREMIUM reports that workers affiliated to the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu) remain on strike at Sibanye-Stillwater's South African gold mines as a process to verify the membership of four unions at the company is still underway.

On Thursday Amcu and Sibanye embarked on a process at the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) but the dispute remains unresolved.

Joseph Mathunjwa, president of Amcu, said this week that talks at the CCMA were adjourned due to a disagreement between the two parties. "The company came with their senior counsel and tried to interpret the judgment to their advantage, to which we disagreed. The commissioner has to write to the judge to clarify certain sections of the judgment," Mathunjwa said.

This is in reference to a ruling in late December. Sibanye had sought to have the strike by Amcu declared unprotected and illegal after it said 51% of unionised workers - represented by the National Union of Mineworkers, Solidarity and UASA - had accepted the wage offer, enabling it to extend the offer to all workers. But a December 21 Labour Court judgment ruled in favour of Amcu and ordered the CCMA to facilitate a union membership verification process and report back to the court by tomorrow.

"With the first day back at work being January 3 2019, employees at the gold operations have started to report for work," James Wellsted, head of investor relations at Sibanye, said this week.

The strike by almost 15,000 Amcu workers has "affected the gold operations to varying extents", said Wellsted. He said an update would be released "in due course".

Amcu demands a basic monthly salary of R12,500 and an increase of R1,000 a month every year for the next three years. The other unions agreed to a R700 monthly increase for the first two years of the wage agreement and an R825 a month increase in the third year.

The original of this report by Ntando Thukwana appeared on page 13 of The Sunday Times of 6 January 2019

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Wednesday, 19 December 2018 11:43

The Star reports that trade unions have called on the Public Investment Corporation (PIC) to rescue South Africa’s largest trading group, Edcon, from its financial woes to avoid a jobs bloodbath.

This comes after a report emerged at the weekend detailing how the retail giant was on the brink of collapse.

Cosatu parliamentary co-ordinator Matthew Parks yesterday warned that the massive job losses would not only affect Edcon.

“We want no job losses. We are saying there is space to make a plan. This is not just job losses at Edcon but also to factories that supply them. We support the engagements between the management and stakeholders to find a way out of this crisis.

“We think the PIC can and it should. This must obviously be done in a sustainable way.

“The PIC cannot be handing out money, because its mandate is to grow and protect public servants’ pension money.

“It is, however, up to the PIC to decide on this,” said Parks.

A report by the Sunday Times newspaper stated that Edcon had sent out a letter to its 31 biggest landlords asking for a two-year 41% “rent holiday” in exchange for a 5% stake in the business in a bid to stave off liquidation and the loss of up to 140000 jobs.

The paper reported that Edcon was seeking R2billion in emergency funding from its owners and the stateowned PIC.

The retail giant operates 1 350 stores, which include CNA, Edgars and Jet.

South African Federation of Trade Unions general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi said: “Liquidation must be the last resort at all times. It should be the last thing to consider. I think we don’t have an option but to find a way of rescuing the company. “The government must work with the management and unions to avoid job losses. I don’t know what this discussion may involve, but all I know is that government cannot just sit and do nothing about this,” said Vavi.

The retail giant is not the only company to cut jobs in the country.

Ndalo Media, the SABC and Afro WorldView are among companies that announced major job losses in 2018.

On Monday, Edcon chief executive Grant Pattison said the group was not collapsing as suggested by the report, but was engaged in talks to prevent job losses.

“Edcon’s balance sheet recovery programme has been under way for some time as we continue to focus on completing a recapitalisation of Edcon.

“Part of the process is the continuing discussions with various stakeholders, which include lenders, landlords, potential new investors and others, as we explore and discuss various options,” said Pattison.

The original of this report by Mary-Jane Mphahlele appeared on page 10 of The Star of 19 December 2018

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Tuesday, 18 December 2018 13:31

The Star reports that, after parading in-sourced security guards at Mary Fitzgerald Square in Newtown, the City of Joburg is now being accused of exploitation.

The Association of Private Security Owners of SA said assertions made by Joburg mayor Herman Mashaba on the benefits of in-sourcing were proving to be contrary to what has transpired since the 1 800 security personnel were hired in July.

“The current working conditions faced by the in-sourced employees are tantamount to exploitation practices which were levelled against the private security employers who rendered security services to the city,” union general secretary Moses Malada said.

This was confirmed by one of the employees, who spoke to The Star on condition of anonymity.

“Security guards are made to work more than 200 hours as opposed to 196 hours as stipulated on our appointment letters. We work 22 shifts but are only paid for 14.

“We are supposed to work 48 hours per week but that does not happen. When we have to get paid we take home less than R7,000. Some guards earn just above R5 000,” the employee said, adding that since July 1 they had not been paid for overtime, Sunday and holiday allowances, as stipulated in their contracts.

Malada said that when the employees were appointed by the city, they were contracted to work for 16 days per month.

“They are now subjected to work for more than 22 days without being compensated for overtime, Sundays and holidays. About 200 of the 1,800 in-sourced employees have not received their salaries since having commenced their duties in July,” Malada said.

Mayoral spokesperson Luyanda Mfeka said the purpose of in-sourcing 4,000 guards was to “provide security personnel with the dignity of decent pay”.

He said the city had held a meeting to discuss the issue of allowances and had resolved that the “payment of allowances be paid in January 2019”.

“Joburg metro police boss David Tembe approved the payment of these allowances (Sunday, public holidays and night shift, overtime) on December 10,” Mfeka said.

“The claim that 3,000 workers are left in limbo is not true. The city has always communicated that in-sourcing of persons is to take a phased approach.

“The city ensured that all qualifying persons who were previously employed by service providers, of which their contracts were terminated during phase 1, were all employed via this in-sourcing process,” Mfeka said.

He also denied that 200 employees were not paid since July.

“Only 83 payments are currently outstanding as a result of some security officers not reporting for duty, while others are still yet to provide relevant documentation for payments to be made,” Mfeka said.

The original of this report by Sibongile Mashaba appeared on page 2 of The Star of 14 December 2018

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Tuesday, 18 December 2018 07:15

BL PREMIUM reports that Amcu will continue with its strike at Sibanye-Stillwater mines until three other unions can prove that they have a combined majority at the company's operations.

This comes after Sibanye this week extended a wage agreement signed with NUM, Uasa and Solidarity to all workers on the grounds that these unions now represent the majority of employees.

Joseph Mathunjwa, the president of Amcu, said on Friday that Amcu rejects the majority status of the three unions and that the onus was on the company and those unions to prove their membership.

"Sibanye is falsifying the numbers," he said, adding that Amcu had not received resignation letters from any members.  As far as we are concerned we are still on strike," Mathunjwa said. The strike was still protected as Amcu had not received notification indicating otherwise. But members could decide to return to work, he said.

James Wellsted, head of investor relations at Sibanye, said on Thursday that the collective membership of NUM, Uasa and Solidarity was now more than 50%, representing a majority, and allowed the company to extend the offer to all other employees in terms of the Labour Relations Act.

Amcu accused Sibanye of using "underhanded tactics" to recruit members for its rivals and enticing workers who do not belong to any union.

Wellsted said: "We ... reject the accusation that any underhanded tactics have been employed by the company. We have been forthright and open in all engagements with Amcu. The movement of employees to other unions is a demonstration that the majority of our employees strongly wish to exercise their right to work and provide for their families, despite significant intimidation from striking workers."

He added that Sibanye reserved its right to legal recourse in regard to the accusation it had sponsored violence. Wellsted said mineworkers who had not resumed work by yesterday faced disciplinary action.

The three-week strike at Sibanye's gold mines, Kloof and Driefontein in Carletonville and Beatrix in the Free State, has resulted in three deaths.

Amcu wanted a basic salary of R12,500 a month, with an increase of R1,000 a month in the next two years of the three-year wage deal. Other unions agreed to a R700-a-month increase in the first and second year and R825 in the third year.

Amcu called on NUM and other unions not to be used by "white monopoly capitalists" to further divide workers. In response to allegations by Amcu, David Sipunzi, NUM general secretary, said Amcu was "a vigilante union of killers" and asked why it was killing people if its strike was protected.

Sipunzi said the unions were not entirely satisfied with what they had negotiated but their members had given them the mandate to sign.

"We signed because our members said, rather than [us] taking down this company, let's accept [the deal] they are giving," he said.

The original of this report by Penelope Mashego and Mudiwa Gavaza appeared at BL Premium (paywall access only)

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Thursday, 13 December 2018 13:25

The Star reports that South Africa’s biggest public sector union, Nehawu, has called on the ANC to spread the removal of those implicated in the VBS Mutual Bank looting scandal to all provinces, and to ban them from the party’s political activities.

This week, the Cosatu affiliate held its last central executive committee meeting, in which it concluded its work for the year and crafted a programme for next year.

The National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union’s call is for “full and immediate implementation” of the ANC integrity commission’s recommendation that all party members implicated in the VBS corruption saga be removed from all responsibilities in the public service and the party.

This comes as seven mayors were fired in Limpopo for investing more than R2.6billion with the now liquidated VBS Mutual Bank, more than R1bn of which is yet to be recovered.

The ANC’s Danny Msiza, who was dubbed by the SA Reserve Bank’s report the kingpin behind the kickbacks given by VBS Bank officials to those who facilitated the depositing of municipal funds into the bank, also announced his resignation on Tuesday.

Nehawu general secretary Zola Saphetha said the ANC’s campaign for next year’s general elections would be tainted if it did not ban all those implicated from the party’s activities.

“The national union holds a strong view that keeping such comrades in our midst creates a hazard to our campaign for votes,” Saphetha said.

Nehawu said it would push, through Cosatu, for their key demands to be reflected in the ANC’s manifesto, to be launched in Durban next month.

These included accelerated implementation of the National Health Insurance and Comprehensive Social Security system, an end to outsourcing and a stand against privatisation, especially at SAA and Eskom.

Saphetha said the union was alarmed by the power crisis at Eskom and the return of load shedding.

“While we applaud (former finance minister) Nhlanhla Nene for his refusal to commit the Treasury to the Zuma-Putin nuclear energy procurement deal, equally, a catastrophic development in the electricity sector is still unfolding.”

Saphetha said Nehawu would back Cosatu’s planned “socio-economic strike” in defence of Eskom’s coal electricity generation.

“The National Union of Mineworkers sponsored the resolution because there is an ongoing privatisation of electricity generation through foreign-owned, private, Independent Power Producers, which Eskom is indirectly forced to subsidise,” he said.

The original of this report by Siviwe Feketha appeared on page 25 of The Star of 13 December 2018

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Tuesday, 04 December 2018 13:57

Business Report writes that allegations emerged that branch leaders of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) were holding non-strike members at the Gold Fields South Deep mine to ransom, as intimidation intensified with the attack on the union’s regional leader during a mass meeting yesterday.

Ndlela Radebe, the chairperson for NUM’s Pretoria-Witwatersrand-Vereeniging region (Gauteng), is in hospital after he was stabbed in the neck and left shoulder at the Green Hills Stadium in Randfontein as he heard concerns of 800 non-striking members. A source close to the union said that non-striking members were raising their concerns after taking strain from the five-week-long strike aimed at opposing retrenchments.

“The problem lies with the branch leaders. They want to strike indefinitely until the mine is shut down. We have more than 3 500 workers who want to go back to work. It is totally irresponsible for the branch to want an indefinite strike,” the source said.

On Sunday Radebe wrote a letter urging the branch to end the strike.

“For more than three weeks to date, the region has been receiving countless calls from concerned union members that the strike is counter-productive and that it impacts them negatively and is threatening their jobs in the company,” said Radebe in the letter. He also said the union could not ignore the concerns of its members.

“We believe they (concerns) are legitimate, hence we are intervening and have decided to inform your branch leaders to bring the strike to an end and consider the proposed offer on the table, so that members can carry on with their lives and return back to work,” said Radebe.

NUM spokesperson said Livhuwani Mammburu said yesterday that the union strongly condemned violence.

“We do not encourage violence to address issues. Those who are responsible for violence must be arrested, even if they are union members,” Mammburu said, adding that the union was doing its level best to resolve the strike. NUM branch leaders rejected the company’s sweetened offer.

The sweetener, which included an increase in the severance package, would cost R40 million more than the R180m the company had already paid in retrenchment packages, the company said.

Since August, Gold Fields has retrenched 1 082 employees and 420 contractors at the South Deep mine.

Company spokesperson Sven Lunsche said yesterday that the company appreciated the NUM’s efforts to end the strike.

The company has previously said it hoped the retrenchments would be a game-changer for the mine, which has been losing R100 million a month.

Gold Fields shares closed 0.84 percent higher at R40.70 on the JSE yesterday.

The original of this report by Dineo Faku appeared on page 17 of Business Report of 4 December 2018

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Thursday, 15 November 2018 13:16

Business Report writes that operations at Dis-Chem Pharmacies are likely to be disrupted by a strike on Friday as the National Union of Public Service & Allied Workers (Nupsaw) and the management of the drug retailer are at a wage impasse.

Nupsaw’s national organiser, Solly Malema, said: “We have failed to reach consensus with the management on wages and other conditions at work. The strike will go ahead as planned on Friday and it will affect all Dis-Chem operations in the country.”

However, Dis-Chem has claimed that no union had sufficient representation at Dis-Chem.

But Malema said as far as the union was concerned they represented more than 30 percent of workers and the numbers could have been higher if DisChem had been loading their members on the payroll system.

Dis-Chem spokesperson Caryn Barker said: “We have already advised the union that unfortunately we are not in a position to meet their demands, so we expect the strike to go ahead on Friday.”

Malema said there were reasonable grounds for the union’s demands as Dis-Chem recently reported 13.3 percent growth in annual turnover to R19.6 billion, up from R17.3bn.

In the six months to end August, results released in October, Dis-Chem reported 13.3 percent increase in turnover to R9.61bn, as compared to R8.48bn reported last year while operating profit increased by 21.4 percent to R650.87 million.

Malema has accused Dis-Chem of not negotiating in good faith.

“Our members had their security wage adjustments reduced without any explanation. To make matters worse, there are no guaranteed annual bonuses, yet the employer is busy planning expansion of 20 stores in the 2019 financial year, with the hard work of its more than 13 500 employees. This shows that Dis-Chem is not ashamed of its treatment towards employees,” Malema added.

Nupsaw said Dis-Chem has failed to meet their demands, which included a minimum wage of R12 500 across the board and an increase of 12.5 percent for those above R12 500.

“We have members who are earning as little as R3 500 a month and we feel that the workers should be receiving decent wages considering the profits the company is making,” Malema said.

Nupsaw is also demanding a guaranteed annual bonus that is equal to the basic salary and a review of the bonus policy. “There is a policy that if one is on a final written warning they are not entitled to the annual bonus,” the union said. “The employer blatantly refuses to bargain with Nupsaw in terms of the employees’ demands and other conditions of employment.

“Nupsaw again had to turn to the CCMA for conciliation, which showed to be just water off a duck’s back. The outcome of the CCMA conciliation yielded Nupsaw a certificate, which permits our members the right to embark on a protected strike to express our demands and concerns,” he said. He added that the union was open to further negotiations with the company in an effort to prevent the strike.

Dis-Chem shares closed 0.96 percent up at R31.50 on the JSE yesterday.

The original of this report by Sandile Mchunu originally appeared on page 17 of Business Report of 15 November 2018

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Wednesday, 14 November 2018 07:10

The Citizen reports that firefighters who survived the tragic Bank Of Lisbon fire in September this year were nearly trapped and burned to death because the fire-escape was blocked by a magnetic security gate, their accounts of the event have suggested.

According to firemen Livhuwani Maumela and Moleko Bereng, who were hospitalised for more than two months following the tragic event, what began as a mission to kill the blaze became a desperate fight for survival as flames engulfed them.

Bereng, who was leading the firefighters and had found the “seat of the fire” on the 24th floor, said things took a turn for the worse when he realised not only could they not find a connection to water, access to the fire-escape was also restricted.

He had to keep his team from panicking.

“We found that there is nothing (no water) and then the escape exit is a magnetic access control. So, it seems no one can enter there, only the person with access control,” said Bereng.

“I was trying to calm the others guys down – they were all panicking.” He eventually found a window to break.

This was the floor from which firefighter Simphiwe Maropane, 24, fell to his death.

Maumela and Bereng sustained severe burns to their hands and underwent skin grafting. They said extreme heat forced them to remove their gloves because in their struggle for finding water they had to block fire with their hands.

“We ran out of water and that was when the fire was raging even more. The building was burning so much we didn’t know what to do.

“It was like if a policeman goes to a shoot-out without a gun. Or if a policeman has a gun with no bullets. Our bullet is water.”

The two firefighters were discharged from hospital yesterday – an event the City of Joburg marked with a guard of honour featuring some of their team-members from the blaze.

During the press briefing, officials were quick to stop the two men from going into more details of how they were injured and who they blamed for their ordeal and the deaths of their colleagues.

They reminded them that investigations into the blaze are still pending.

While the city’s investigation was not dependent on that of other authorities, community safety MMC Michael Sun said his office would be working with the South African Police Service and had plans to meet and compare notes.

“We, as the City of Joburg will be conducting our own investigation. “I personally follow up on the progress of the investigation results regularly.

“We are hoping that in the next few months the investigation will have concluded and we will be able to report back the findings to know what exactly caused the fire and what really fuelled the fire to such an extent it burned for two days,” said Sun.

Meanwhile the completion of the police investigation would determine the commencement of a “full” investigation by Gauteng authorities, said Premier David Makhura’s spokesperson, Thabo Masebe.

He said their investigation was into the structural integrity of the building and would lead to a decision on whether to demolish the building or repair it. –

It was like a policeman going to a shootout without a gun.

The original of this report by Simnikiwe Hlatshaneni appeared on page 2 of The Citizen of 13 November 2018

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Wednesday, 07 November 2018 14:21

The Star reports that more than three years after resolving to consider insourcing several key functions, the government has finally appointed a service provider to conduct an independent impact study into outsourcing and use of agents for some of its employees.  

The Regen Group will conduct research into the number of outsourcing contracts that each national and provincial government department has entered into between 2014 and last year.

According to the Department of Public Service and Administration, cleaning, catering, security, gardening and laundry services are among the job categories that will be the focus of the review.

The resolution to review outsourcing was taken at the Public Service Co-ordinating Bargaining Council (PSCBC) in February 2015.

Parties to the bargaining council had wanted the review to be conducted and a report presented within six months after the resolution was signed.

Government departments have until next Friday to submit the information required for the independent impact study.

In terms of the resolution, the PSCBC also wanted to find out the extent of wastage and corruption related to the awarding of tenders and payments made to private companies for their services compared to when these functions and services were performed by the government.

The review will find out the number of private companies that benefited as a result of outsourcing.

It wants details of the pitfalls and successes of outsourcing including costs savings recorded as a result of outsourcing, the number of jobs lost and created in each department and the value of the contracts.

The department wants information on the conditions of service of former state employees employed by private service providers due to outsourcing and its impact on the government’s empowerment agenda.

The review of outsourcing and use of agents follows the City of Johannesburg’s decision to start in-sourcing hundreds of security guards earlier this year.

In May, the National Assembly’s portfolio committee on economic development recommended that ministers, directors-general and heads of departments ensure that the Competition Commission utilise its allocated funds to speed up the training and upskilling of existing personnel and recruiting requisite skills to end the need for outsourcing and report on progress bi-annually.

The Joburg Municipality hopes to hire nearly 4 000 security guards through insourcing, increasing their remuneration and benefits while costing the city no more than what has been spent on over 100 security contracts for about R700 million a year.

The original of this report by Loyiso Sidimba appeared on page 11 of The Star of 7 October 2018

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Monday, 05 November 2018 13:26

City Press reports that beneficiaries of a multibillion-rand employee trust are fighting in court for it to be dissolved owing to concerns about a lack of transparency and because it is allegedly not benefiting them.

Ukhamba Trust, an employee benefit scheme set up in 1998 for employees of automotive and logistics company Imperial, is being taken to court by a group of the trust’s beneficiaries. The trust has 15 553 beneficiaries.

According to Oshy Tugendhaft, the lawyer representing the trust, from law firm Tugendhaft Wapnick Banchetti and Partners, Imperial provided initial capital of R15 million for the creation of Ukhamba.

Acting on behalf of 1 100 beneficiaries in the matter, which is before the Johannesburg High Court, Reuben Malabela, one of beneficiaries, has filed court documents, of which City Press has copies, that apply to the court to dissolve the trust and distribute the money held therein.

The trust owns a 10.1% stake in Imperial and holds funds worth more than R2 billion, according to Malabela.

“We want the trust dissolved because the beneficiaries are not benefiting. The trust has been amended several times without the knowledge of the beneficiaries and they were never given a chance to elect their representative among the trustees.

“There are also a lot of people who were left out even though they were employees of Imperial and there was never a reason given for that,” he said.

“Another issue is that a lot of beneficiaries have since died and their next of kin were never alerted of the trust benefits even though we are told they employed a tracing company, but no one was ever traced,” he said, adding that only employees employed before March 2004 qualified for the shares according to the trust deed.

Ukhamba Holdings is an investment holding company whose shareholders are the Ukhamba Trust, which owns 47.1%; Imperial, which owns a 46.9% stake; with the remaining 6% belonging to the Ukhamba Community Development Trust.

According to Tugendhaft, there was nothing untoward about the trust.

Tugendhaft lambasted Malabela and said his assertion that the trust had ensured that most of the legal representations the beneficiaries sought always ultimately decided against continuing with the matter, allegedly after being coerced by the trust.

“This is an absurd and defamatory allegation that is devoid of truth. Our client is not aware of any other lawyers whom, it is alleged, represented any beneficiaries,” he said.

He also pointed out that Malabela has instituted an application to review and set aside the decision in the arbitration.

“When our client was initially approached by Mr Malabela, it established that of the beneficiaries he claimed to represent, all had been paid their dividends due to them and the majority had elected to dispose of their ‘A’ shares,” he added.

Tugendhaft said the beneficiaries of the trust received their units in the trust from Imperial for free and the company also issued Imperial deferred shares to Ukhamba for free.

Companies use deferred shares as part of employee compensation plans.

The deferred Imperial shares convert to ordinary Imperial shares in annual tranches, Tugendhaft said.

About 15 056 029 Imperial shares have been converted and the remaining deferred shares would convert in equal tranches each year until 2025, up to a total of 21 million Imperial shares.

The main underlying asset of the trust is represented by its 47.1% shareholding in Ukhamba, comprising the ordinary shares and deferred shares in Imperial.

“In 2013, in response to beneficiaries wishing to realise their interest in the trust, Ukhamba created an A share that is representative of the underlying Imperial ordinary shares and Imperial deferred shares, which A share was listed on a trading platform and can be traded,” Tugendhaft said.

“There are 6 483 beneficiaries, who have retained their A shares, since the remaining

9 070 beneficiaries elected to dispose of their shares, once the A shares were listed in 2013,” he said.

Ukhamba received dividends from the Imperial ordinary shares and then in turn declared and paid dividends to the A shareholders, Tugendhaft said.

“There is a growth in the underlying Imperial deferred shares and the Imperial ordinary shares held by Ukhamba, but that growth is only realised if and when the A shares are sold,” he added.

“The total dividends declared by Ukhamba to its shareholders ... to date ... amount to R850 million, of which the trust received 47.1% – [about] R400 million for its beneficiaries.”

He said the beneficiaries of the trust each received an average R25 485 and at listing each received 1 206 A shares, which, at R25 per share, were worth R30 150 in total.

The original of this report by Lesetja Malope appeared on page 5 of City Press Business of 4 November 2018

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Thursday, 01 November 2018 12:45

The Star reports that SABC executives have warned that the technically insolvent national public broadcaster could be heading for collapse if it does not cut its wage bill.

This as the organisation announced its plan for massive retrenchments which will see about 981 permanent employees and 1 200 freelancers lose their jobs, a move that has outraged unions and political parties.

Chief executive Madoda Mxakwe said the corporation was so financially troubled that it could no longer fulfil its monthly obligations.

“We are technically insolvent as the SABC. We are not able to fulfil our monthly obligations. The threat of commercial insolvency is indeed increasing significantly,” he said.

Mxakwe said the R3.1 billion wage bill, made up 42% of the R7.2bn total expenditure, was not sustainable, and job cuts would be inevitable even in the face of political opposition.

“The decision that we will take in doing this may not be acceptable but we know that it is in the best interest of the SABC. We have a choice to say, do we do what is right in terms of taking these decisions, or do we let the SABC collapse? This is a very significant institution in our country to let it collapse and we have to do what is right.”

Mxakwe said the broadcaster faced a possibility of being unable to fulfil its public mandate if it was not restructured into a commercially viable organisation.

“In the past three years, the cost of the public mandate has been sitting at R4.2bn, and we have done projections to say in the next few years what would be the cost, and it is sitting at about R6.2bn,” he said.

Group executive for human resources Jonathan Thekiso said a probe into jobs had established duplications of responsibilities, where one permanent staff member was doing a job while three freelancers were hired to do the same job.

The broadcaster is also in the process of recouping more than R6m in irregular expenditure.

Thekiso said the SABC was targeting those who were either appointed (or received salary increments irregularly) by previous executives, including controversial former chief operating officer Hlaudi Motsoeneng, who is also being legally pursued.

“There is a legal process happening between the former COO and the organisation and the figure I have seen is around R22m, which is legal costs, and the other figure is R50m, which I believe is a bonus.

“Those numbers may form part of the R60m. We are not going to go into finer details at this point, suffice to say that there are irregularities that we have identified and we are focusing on those,” he said.

The EFF has called for an urgent intervention by Communications Minister Nomvula Mokonyane by giving the SABC a guarantee letter to enable it to secure funds that can save it from retrenching thousands of workers.

The original of this report by Siviwe Feketha appeared on page 11 of The Star of 1 November 2018

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Wednesday, 31 October 2018 13:20

Business Report writes that the millions of South Africans out of work will now pin their hopes on the framework agreed to at the recently concluded Jobs Summit to create employment after the third quarter jobs data showed the unemployment rate at a year high of 27.5 percent.

The third quarter’s jobs print was also the highest jobless rate since the third quarter of 2017 when it was recorded at a 13-year high of 27.7 percent.

The key mining and manufacturing sectors were once again the biggest culprits in the jobs bloodbath, shedding 54 000 jobs between them in the third quarter. The mining sector workforce, which stood at 446,000 at the end of last year’s third quarter, has plunged to 406 000.

In all, the number of unemployed persons rose by 127,000 to 6.2 million in the period, while 92,000 jobs were created in the period, taking the labour force to 16.4 million.

Statistics SA said the country’s unemployment has since 2008 raced from 21.5 percent to almost 28 percent.

“The most affected persons were women and youth. More men (51.4 percent) than women were unemployed in 2018 compared to 2008. However, the percentage of women who were in long-term unemployment was higher than that of men in both 2008 and 2018,” StatsSA said.

The expanded definition of unemployment, including people who have stopped looking for work, rose to 37.3 percent in the quarter from 37.2 percent in the prior quarter.

Earlier this month, Bureau for Economic Research data showed that since the 2009 financial crisis, domestic real gross domestic product growth has underperformed relative to both emerging market peers and average global growth.

The research showed that, under different assumptions regarding post-crisis growth and the elasticity of employment, the economy could have created between 500,000 and 2.5 million more job opportunities over the eight-year period.

The jobs picture looks even bleaker after both the National Treasury and the South African Reserve Bank revised their growth forecast for this year to a pedestrian 0.7 percent – way below the average population growth rate of 1.6 percent.

Lara Hodes, an economist at Investec, said: “In order to see any significant job creation in South Africa, economic growth needs to be ignited, underpinned by effective policy implementation and policy certainty, which are required to restore confidence and enhance the investment climate.”

Stakeholders at the Jobs Summit signed a framework agreement which outlines measures aimed at arresting the tide of unemployment and job losses.

The framework has set a target of creating 275,000 jobs annually over five years.

However, cracks have begun to show in the agreed framework after the country’s major trade union federation Cosatu yesterday said the government was not committed to the framework, particularly taking issue with planned lay-offs at the SABC.

The SABC is looking at letting 982 workers go and cutting 1,200 of its freelance workers.

Cosatu spokesperson Sizwe Pamla said South Africa had not been able to set itself on a path of people-centred development.

The original of this report by Kabelo Khumalo appeared on page 17 of Business Report on 31 October 2018

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Tuesday, 30 October 2018 14:41

The Star reports that the Public Servants Association (PSA) and several Cosatu and Saftu unions have been fingered for allegedly misrepresenting their membership in the Public Health and Social Development Sectoral Bargaining Council, which allowed them to receive more money from the council.

This was revealed by an independent audit report conducted by the firm Kreston and released earlier this month.

Unions are required to submit their audited membership at the end of every financial year to the bargaining council, which it must further audit.

In terms of discrepancies between members submitted by unions and membership verified through the National Treasury, the PSA has recorded the most unaccounted membership figures among the 10 affected unions, at 9 279.

Of the 77892 members submitted by the PSA to the council as of December31 last year, only 68613 could be verified by the Persal (payroll system) report submitted by the Treasury.

According to the report, the unions denied inflating membership and instead said deductions form their members were being cancelled where no cancellation letter had been received by the unions, and that some members took leave without pay, as some of the reasons they could not account for their stated membership.

Yesterday, PSA deputy general manager Tahir Maepa confirmed that despite the unions drawing money from the council based on their submitted memberships, not all of their members were paid up.

He said many of the unaccounted for members from the unions had their subscriptions cancelled, but not in line with the Labour Relations Act.

“People join the unions in terms of the Labour Relations Act, and they can terminate their membership in terms of the act, and the act prescribes how you terminate your labour relations,” Maepa said. “We are not denying that we are not receiving money from these members, but what we are saying is that those people never cancelled their membership with the PSA.”

He alleged that there was a conspiracy within the public service where public servants working with Persal cancelled subscriptions for the PSA.

“We also know the politics behind this and we are working on it. Persal must explain because we have organisational rights. There is no reason for them to allow cancellations without people complying with the Labour Relations Act,” he said.

The report could see all Saftu unions – including its biggest affiliate in the council, Nupsaw – removed from the council as their real combined membership has been exposed as not meeting the 30000 minimum threshold for participating in the council.

Nupsaw’s general secretary, Success Mataitsane, said the report, which stated that 3250 of its 27025 members were unaccounted for, was biased and aimed at removing Saftu unions from the council.

He said most of the unaccounted for members were community healthcare workers who were being paid through a private service provider.

“The Gauteng Department of Health has outsourced the payroll of its community health workers. We have over 3000 members who are community health workers,” Mataitsane said.

Most unions did not respond to questions by the time of publication.

The original of this report by Siviwe Feketha appeared on page 7 of The Star of 30 October 2018

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Tuesday, 23 October 2018 14:18

Sowetan reports that a junior member at the EFF office in North West claims that she lost her job for speaking out about her alleged assault by the party’s chief whip in the provincial legislature. Maggie Klaas, who worked as an administrator at the EFF’s office, said she was fired on Thursday.

Klaas said she was accused of bringing the name of the party into disrepute by talking about the alleged assault to the media.

In November, Klaas opened a case of assault with the police, accusing her direct manager Bungas Ntsangane of threatening to cut off her private parts before physically assaulting her. The two were allegedly fighting for an office key.

This, according to Klaas, happened in full view of other legislature members. Klaas said on Thursday she was shocked when she received a letter telling her that her contract has been terminated. She said she sought an explanation but the party management would not budge. She said she has been working for EFF for more than two years but had never experienced such hostility.

“They started treating me bad after I reported the incident to the police; they tried on several occasions to force me to drop the charges or face dismissal,” she said.

She said what Ntsangane did to her was wrong. “Instead of getting the support from the party after he assaulted me, I received a hostile treatment,” Klaas said. Provincial party spokesman Jerry Matebesi said Klaas was never forced to drop the case of alleged assault against Ntsangane. He said Klaas was dismissed for refusing to comply with a lawful instruction to attend a staff meeting.

He said Klaas also refused to work at the EFF’s provincial office when she was requested to do so to beef up the election machinery.

Matebesi said Klaas unlawfully disseminated information to the media about internal affairs of the EFF, thus bringing the party into disrepute since she was not authorised to speak to the media. He said Klaas behaved in a rude manner in front of other staff members during her meeting with head of human resources, Namhle Ncobo. “She screamed, banged the table and left the meeting while the head of HR was still addressing her,” Matebesi said. “Her inability to complete basic tasks like typing of a letter forced the HR department to consider capacity building programmes for her.”

But Klaas dismissed the allegations levelled against her. “They claim they fired me because I did not follow instructions. Yes, I refused to drop the charges.”

The case against Ntsangane has been postponed to November 13 by the Mmabatho magistrate’s court for investigation.

The original of this report by Boitumelo Tshehle appeared on page 9 of Sowetan of 22 October 2018

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Monday, 08 October 2018 12:41

Business Report writes that President Cyril Ramaphosa begins preparations for his investment summit later this month on a high after securing backing from some of the country’s biggest conglomerates to assist his jobs creation drive.

Ramaphosa also managed to secure commitments from organised businesses that all alternatives needed to be explored before retrenchments were effected.

Businesses also agreed to sacrifice executive salary hikes and forgo dividends.

The financial sector said it would invest R100 billion over five years in black-owned industrial enterprises as part of its transformation commitments.

Absa chief executive Maria Ramos said on the sidelines of the summit that it was a joint effort to turn the tide for the economy.

“The president (Ramaphosa) cannot do this on his own and the government can’t do this on its own. We all have to put our shoulders to the wheel,” Ramos said, adding that the upcoming investment conference needed to be supported domestically.

However, the jury remains out on whether the two-day inaugural Jobs Summit would deliver the 275 000 annual jobs in a troubled economy that has fallen into technical recession.

NKC Research said the proposals to create new jobs while maintaining existing ones would put Ramaphosa’s credibility to the test.

“The summit will prove to be a critical credibility test for Ramaphosa and its success or failure will in no small part be influencing public perceptions of the president,” the group’s Gary Van Staden said.

“But unless the government embarks on a fundamental rethink of the economy and what promotes real sustainable growth above 5 percent, this summit, like so many before it, is doomed to fail.”

The summit saw business, labour and government agreeing to more than 70 commitments aimed at unlocking job creation and boosting economic growth.

In the past few months the country has lost jobs with Statistics South Africa’s quarterly report indicating that 69 000 people became jobless in the second quarter. The National Planning Commission confirmed that the government’s plan to cut unemployment to single digits by 2030 would be impossible to realise.

But Ramos said the summit was a huge opportunity for South Africa to create jobs and improve business confidence.

“Domestic investment is where you start,” she said “We expect foreigners to come and invest here, well that is interesting if we don’t invest in the country, who else will invest?”

The original of this report by Dineo Faku appeared on page 13 of Business Report of 8 October 2018

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Monday, 08 October 2018 11:02

Sunday Times Business Times reports that billions of rands earmarked by the National Skills Fund (NSF) for the development of badly needed artisans have been blown by the government on university students instead, says NSF CEO Mvuyisi Macikama.

"Our money has been spent for something other than the key areas we're supposed to be focusing on," he says.

SA is so short of artisans it is having to import them.

Universities, on the other hand, are churning out so many students with "soft" degrees that the market cannot absorb them.

Macikama said in the NSF's 2017-2018 annual report tabled in parliament this week that the department of higher education & training had taken R6.56bn from the NSF's accumulated surplus to pay for the government's no-fee increase promise to university students.

In 2016, NSF coffers were raided to the tune of R1.27bn, and this shot up to a whopping R5.28bn last year. Macikama says by 2019-2020 there will be no surplus left.

The NSF intended spending R1.5bn of this money on "reactivating" the capacity of state-owned enterprises like Eskom, Transnet, Denel and SAA Technical to provide the kind of artisan training they did in the past before being hollowed out by state-sponsored looters.

It had allocated another R1.5bn to turn the country's technical and vocational education and training colleges, most of which he says are just glorified schools, into institutions that offer "occupationally directed" programmes.

"All of these major plans have been badly hampered by the fact that we had to redirect our resources to meet the demands of Fees Must Fall," he says.

The NSF had no say in the matter.

"A decision was taken that there should be no fee increase. That zero-increase policy was not funded through the fiscus and so the department had to look around to see what it could tap into."

The NSF was told it would be a "one-off", but then came the "free fees" announcement.

"We didn't know there would be another policy coming which would be almost a permanent feature of the higher education system."

A no-increase, let alone free, fee policy is "absolutely not sustainable", he says. "Absolutely not. It is a totally unsustainable policy."

He says the skills the NSF is mandated to target are mostly not taught at university but due to the department's intervention, its money is being spent on university students regardless of what they're studying.

This will make the National Development Plan's goal of 30,000 artisans a year by 2030 impossible to meet, he says. Only 21,000 artisans a year are being produced at the moment.

Although other bodies such as the Sector Education and Training Authorities are supposed to deliver on this as well, "you could say the NSF is a critical player in this space".

Businesses in the metals and engineering sector that are desperate for skilled artisans and paid skills levies of R3bn to the NSF last year have communicated their concern that NSF money is being channelled into keeping fees down for social sciences and humanities students at university.

"We're going through a consultation process with them, and these are the concerns that have been raised and continue to be raised," says Macikama.

"They have expressed their anger, but they realise that there is currently a funding reality in the country as far as universities are concerned."

He says the higher education and training department shouldn't have treated the NSF's budget as its own, but had little choice.

"It should not have. But when there is a policy directive like this that is approved at the highest level, and is inclusive of the National Treasury, how can an institution act against that reality?"

The argument he met from the department was that the NSF's mandate was to provide skills required by the country, and skills provided by universities are required by the country.

Engineering and medical, perhaps, but social sciences and humanities?

"Maybe not on the scale that is currently the case," he says. There are more students with these qualifications than the market is able to process, he says.

Meanwhile, businesses are having to import the skills they require.

What Macikama finds perhaps more alarming is that South African institutions no longer have the capacity to offer training in badly needed specialist skills.

"Hence we are sending more and more students to other countries to gain the kind of skills that industry requires."

He says the shortage of artisans is hampering the rollout of the government's infrastructure development programme.

Thanks to private-sector support, NSF plans to have 26 "centres of specialisation" up and running at technical and vocational training colleges from January next year are still on track, he says.

The private sector is "showing willingness in a very big way to ensure that they succeed and give us on a consistent basis the skills needed".

Macikama says the policy environment is being "tightened up" to meet the need for assurances that the money the private sector contributes will not be hijacked by the department to meet government no-fee-increase commitments.

"We can't give any guarantees but we can contribute to tightening the policy environment so that the lines are clearly defined."

The need for certainty about how the skills levy will be utilised is something it emphasised, he said. At all the meetings this issue "has been at the centre".

He says the centres of specialisation are intended to play the role of the old discarded apprenticeship system.

"This is about industry being at the forefront so that the ones we indenture in these programmes at the centres of specialisation don't just go there as people who want to enter an institution, but go there because industry has sent them there and wants them there to acquire specific skills."

Macikama, 45, who has been CEO since 2011, says he doesn't know why the apprenticeship system was done away with, but fortunately "quite a number of industries never really stopped it".

"Manufacturing in the country could have collapsed altogether if they had not kept it going, even if on a smaller scale."

The original of this report by Chris Barron appeared on page 8 of Sunday Times Business Times of 7 October 2018

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Monday, 01 October 2018 14:08

Sowetan reports that several employees of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) have accused their bosses of purging them for not supporting the union’s current leaders at the previous conference.

In July, a total of 10 employees received letters from NUM’s general secretary David Sipunzi, informing them that they were being moved to other regions “for the benefit of the organisation”.

In the letter, Sipunzi informed the workers, who are mostly line managers in the NUM regions, that the transfer “will not have any effect” on their salaries, and it was effective from September 3.

But the workers are fuming as they say they are being purged because they supported Piet Matosa, who lost the position of president to his former deputy, Joseph Montisetse, at the NUM conference held in June.

One of the workers who received the letter has since resigned from the NUM.

Workers who have been moved said this would have a negative impact on their families.  Some workers were moved from Limpopo to Northern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal to Western Cape, Gauteng to Eastern Cape, Cape Town to Limpopo and Rustenburg to Mpumalanga.

“We just received letters without any consultation.  We received the letters on July 26 and then lodged a grievance.  We escalated the matter to the national committee.  Before we even got response from the committee, we were locked out of our offices,” said one worker.

Sipunzi rejected the allegations by the workers.  “I am not aware of any employee of the union who supported a particular leader during the conference,” he said.

Sipunzi said employees have no role to play on who gets elected.

“In this instance, after assessing our performance in the previous three years, we decided that maybe we can change the way we do things.  We can improve in terms of growing our membership base.  There is no demotion in that.”

The workers have taken the NUM to the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration and the matter will be heard this week.

The original of this report by Penwell Dlamini appeared on page 5 of Sowetan of 1 October 2018

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