02 Aug 2015

The Minister of Labour and Home Affairs, Mr Edwin Batshu says it is a welcome development that the Industrial Court has in the recent past registered positive improvements in its adjudication of labour matters.

Giving a keynote address at the Industrial Court inaugural performance awards ceremony  in Gaborone recently, Mr Batshu noted that the court has recently registered an improved performance and this was significantly evident in the improved timely hearing of cases.

He however gave credit to the backlog reduction strategy that the court has introduced given the positive results it has yielded. In this regard, he noted that the recorded performance has raised confidence in the labour justice system and most importantly restored the customers’ trust and confidence in the court’s service delivery.

Minister Batshu therefore praised both the judges and the staff of the Industrial Court for this improvement.

In view of this, he urged them to keep up the momentum to ensure an effective labour justice system that enhances the country’s global competitiveness.

In another development, the minister said the court intends to extend its services to other parts of the country such as Tsabong in order for Batswana to benefit from the services.

He implored the court leadership to continue to sharing organisational goals with employees to ensure service delivery through performance monitoring.

This he said included cascading  the organisational strategy, ensuring signing of performance agreements, conducting performance reviews and reward performance as well as coaching employees.

The minister however highlighted that where performance monitoring systems were not fully in place it became difficult to reward performance. He warned that failure to reward performance was a morale breaker in that performers are always grouped together with non-performers.

Giving a welcome address, the Judge President of the Industrial Court, Mr Goemekgabo Maruping said this was the beginning of a new chapter aimed at motivating staff to diligently serve the nation.

He said as they draw nearer to 2016, the court should also ensure that it achieves its organisational goals.

Mr Maruping said the Industrial Court has standards that were measurable and are expeditiously carried out by all. He therefore said the recipients of the awards were also selected through a well refined procedure.

He noted that said the organisation thrived to achieve more in future and further thanked Minister Batshu for his unwavering support as he usually find time to visit them in both Gaborone and Francistown stations.

Employees were awarded trophies, certificates and prize money in 12 categories and Ms Wilhelmina Selwe from Francistown Industrial Court became overall best performer, a prize which attracted P4 000. Ends