31 Mar 2014

The Assistant Minister of Trade and Industry, Mr Keletso Rakhudu has informed Parliament that the office of the Registrar of Companies and Intellectual Property has a total of 21 temporary employees on a two months contract expiring on March 31, 2014.

Answering a question in Parliament, Mr Rakhudu said as had been the practice, towards the end of the two months contract, the temporary employees were reminded that their contracts will be coming to an end and were further informed that they would not be renewed.

He said out of the 21 officers, the office would retain three officers as they had not exceeded 12 months. Mr Rakhudu added that on March 10, they received a savingram from the Director of Public Service Management (DPSM), alerting all ministries against engaging temporary employees for a period exceeding 12 months.

He said the savingram said this contravened Section 13 (2) of the Public Service Act No.30 of 2008, which the temporary employees were made aware of. Mr Rakhudu said this was done to manage the legitimate expectation that their contracts would be renewed as it had been the case in the past.

Furthermore, he said it was true that some of the affected employees had been in the employ of the organisation for almost five years. He said out of the 21 temporary employees, one had been employed in the organisation for more than five years whilst three were almost five years.

Mr Rakhudu further said the ministry should not give these temporary employees a three month notice as is not provided for in the law governing their employment.

He said a three month notice would have exceeded their two months contract and ordinarily, notice period for monthly term employees is one month.

The Assistant Minister was responding to the MP for Kgalagadi South, Mr John Toto who wanted to know whether it is true that more than 20 temporary employees at the office of the Registrar of Companies and Intellectual Property have been given seven days notice to have vacated their jobs by end of March, 2014.

He also wanted to know if some affected employees have been employed in that organisation for almost five years as temporary employees.

Mr Toto also wanted to know why they could not be given at least three months notice to prepare themselves. Ends