[Great stuff… The Govt doesn’t care about competance in the work place. I love this stuff. This is how the economy will be destroyed – by firing competent workers because they are White and employing incompetant Blacks because they are Black. Expect efficiency and profits in South Africa to decline in the coming years. Jan]

Government is to take further action to ensure that employers comply substantively with the Employment Equity Act, Labour Minister Membathisi Mdladlana announced on Tuesday.

Speaking during debate on his budget vote in the National Assembly, he said those opposed to the act “can shout as much as they want…but what they must know is that employment equity is here to stay.”

Since the Act was passed, the department had been ensuring that employers comply procedurally with the Act by submitting their reports as required by the law.

“This focus has led to more employers submitting their reports than was previously the case — from 6 990 employers in 2002 to 9 364 employers in October last year.”

However, analysis of these reports showed the necessary progress was not being made in this regard.

Top and middle management in companies continued to be dominated by white males.

“We are therefore changing gear significantly in this financial year,” he said.

“We are now going to ensure that employers comply substantively with the Act and are not just meeting the minimum standard of submitting reports without any equity changes in the workforce.”

In an effort to strengthen monitoring and enforcement of the implementation of the Act and other legislation, a National Roving Inspectorate Unit would be introduced this year.

The key responsibility of this unit would be to conduct inspections that required expert talent at national level.

“The agility of this unit is expected to enhance the impact of inspectorate nationally and thus raise compliance levels.

“In addition to this, strategic partnerships will be explored to focus on administrative aspects of inspection work to allow inspectors to focus on the core business of the inspectorate.

“We will also be initiating a 5-year impact study on the progress of the implementation of the Employment Equity Act since its inception,” Mdladlana said.

Turning to the Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF), he said he had received the reports of the two forensic investigations into matters raised in the 2003/2004 Auditor-General’s report on the fund.

“Indications are that there is a need to investigate further and get convincing information from affected financial institutions. We have started to implement some of their recommendations towards strengthening financial controls.

“It is, however, not all doom and gloom. Allow me this opportunity to allay the fears of workers and employers about the UIF. The fund, which just three years ago was declared technically insolvent, became fully funded in December last year.

“What this means is that the fund has achieved one of its main turnaround objectives, that of becoming financially sustainable.”

The actuaries required the UIF to build reserves of up to R8,4-billion for the fund to be financially viable.

This had now been achieved and was exceeded in December 2004 when the UIF reached R9,3 billion of reserves, Mdladlana said. — Sapa

Source: Daily Mail & Guardian
URL: http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articlei…/p>