19 Mar 2014

Minister of Labour and Home affairs, Mr Edwin Batshu has requested Parliament to approve a budget proposal totalling P34 million for the Industrial Court.

Mr Batshu proposed an allocation of over P5.6 million for the development budget which would be used for procurement of porta-cabins to alleviate shortage of office accommodation at the Francistown division of the court, fleet expansion, replacement of the Industrial Court recording system, overhaul of the network system and purchase of associated hardware and software.

The same funds would be used for the procurement of biometric access system to control access and the security of the court and installation of security cameras to secure the court building environment, said Mr Batshu. Furthermore, Mr Batshu said these funds would also be used to pay the final account for the Industrial Court building.

As for the recurrent budget, Minister Batshu requested for P28.3 million for the Industrial Court. This budget, he added, represented an increase of 27 per cent over the 2013/14 budget.

The increase, he said, was mainly on personnel emoluments and other charges as a result of the opening of the Industrial Court in Francistown, hence the increase in staff to support the increased number of judges and the court business in general.

Minister Batshu further briefed the house that in December 2013, the court introduced a Backlog Strategy which has been implemented in phases. He said Phase 1 entailed the establishment of statistics for pending cases covering the period 2009 downwards, while Phase 2 entailed enrolment of all matters due for dismissal for want of prosecution.

“These were cases which could not be heard for a period of more than six years and were set down for February and March 2014 rolls,” he said. He said Phase 3 entailed matters due for hearing and to date parties have appeared before the court for status hearing and have been given dates of hearing.

Mr Batshu said it was envisaged that this process would be completed at the end of April and the judges would all hear 2010 matters. Ends