Deputy Minister Jomo Sibiya: Meeting of the Portfolio Committee on Employment and Labour

Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee – Hon. Maneli
Deputy Minister – Nemadzinga-Tshabalala
Members of the Portfolio Committee on Employment and Labour
Committee and Executive Support Staff
Administration officials led by the Acting DG

Chairperson on the 2nd of this Month of March on Monday yet another building has collapsed, this time at Ormonde in Johannesburg in circumstances that are preventable given that we have regulatory laws in this country, but those whose interest is to accumulate profit choose not to comply with them.

It should be vehemently said that it is inhumane employers especially business to disregard a precious thing such as life of another person because they to want to fill their deep pockets. Nine lives have been lost, because of greed and total disregard of our laws.

So, we are not petty, neither are we spiteful when we give support to labour inspectors when they conduct inspections in places of work. Our ultimate aim is to prevent the loss of life than any other thing but also to prevent loss of limb. Because as nine lives were lost, three workers got injured. We will continue to say condolences to all those families. May the souls of the departed rest peacefully.

We went to the scene of the incident. We met with various role players who some of are hard at work investigating as to what has factually and evidentially happened, which led to the loss of life of workers. We have no doubt that the various Teams will work in collaboration, complementing each other up until they get to the bottom of what has really happened.

The investigation will establish facts, assess compliance with all applicable regulatory laws, including by-laws of the Metropolitan Municipality, and all applicable building and safety standards. It will put down appropriate remedial steps.

Yesterday, we had a very interesting meeting in Newcastle. The same Newcastle that you went to as members of this Portfolio Committee. I mean you saw all when you were there. You witnessed repeat offences. But some people still believe that they are being targeted unfairly so, when they put lives of many at risk, and all that we are doing is to say please stop it. Our message to the employers is simple please cooperate. Respect the laws of the country. And when you do, we will walk away, but as long as you exploit and kill workers we will continue to be in your case. We belong to the caring government. Government that respects human rights. So, if you run your business within the parameters of the rules, regulations and laws you will always be our friend.

Members, the Portfolio Committee meeting of today will receive briefing on 2025/2026 Third Quarterly Performance of CCMA, NEDLAC and Productivity South Africa.

We are all going to provide our reading of the information we've received in order to check as to whether we are on the right track, or there are twists and turns that need to be made.

One of the areas that we are grappling with in the DEL Portfolio, as we all know, is the issue of ICT. But when it comes to CCMA, they sat percentage of uptime critical systems implement in quarter 3 at 99%. Now the monitoring and incident-response improvements introduced in Q2 helped to resolve issues quickly, resulting in a quarterly uptime of 99.99%. This provides one of the areas where we must learn from each other.

CCMA also have a legislated target, where due to coming up with numerous control measures to mitigate against possibility of non-achievement, they end up overachieving that target, which is conciliable cases heard within 30 days at first event.

Even on the issue of arbitration awards rendered that must be sent to parties within 14 days of the conclusion of the arbitration proceedings, the target there is overachieved because there are numerous control measures in place to mitigate against late awards sent to parties which include daily reports to regions. So, CCMA deal with WHAT IF meticulously. And that is a lesson page to the DEL Portfolio at large.

As much as even with NEDLAC, they achieved 78% of projects focused on automation and system integration, we are looking forward at moving a step further than the 78%. Others reach 99% on these performance indicators, the likes of CCMA.

In relation to the thematic dialogue series held annually to forge consensus and build stakeholder capacity, with each series reflected within a Dialogue Series Report that is approved and published within 30 days of the last dialogue, NEDLAC achieved this performance indicator.

When it comes to policy recommendations, as set out in the annual business plan, this was also achieved by NEDLAC.

On Productivity SA, financial results at the end of the Third Quarter are still indicative of challenges faced during the initial phase of projects such as signing of MoUs as well as nurturing of SMMEs into programmes.

This has impacted consulting income as well as expenditure levels to date. There are however signs of improvement from the second quarter in terms of project implementation as the ground work has been laid at this stage, and the more valuable deliverables tend to be in the later phases of the programmes. The income statement of Productivity South Africa reveals that there is an improvement in project implementation pace as from the second part of the financial year. Consolidated operating deficit incurred is R1.2m, as of December 2025.

In the Second Quarter Productivity SA reported a deficit of R1m, showing a slight upward movement as a result of revenue shortfalls and curbing of unavoidable operating expenditure. Productivity SA took a decision to only hire in critical positions in line with affordability as a means of improving financial sustainability, what they are getting for that is that Compensation of Employees spending is below budget by R10.2m on compensation of employees.

Hon Members, it is at this stage where I would like to hand over to acting DG and her administration team, to pick up from where I have left, by highlighting key issues for this meeting.

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