HUMAN CAPITAL & SKILLS DEVELOPMENT SERVICES
Proposed Amendments to the Employment Equity Amendment Bill Critical for organisations are the amendments that were tabled and approved by Cabinet in February 2020 concerning the Employment Equity Act. In July 2020, the Minister of Employment and Labour published that the Bill would go to the National Assembly to start the Parliamentary process. The National Assembly then put the Bill out for the public to comment and the process is coming to finalisation.
WHAT DO THE AMENDMENTS PROPOSE? The most significant amendment to the proposed Employment Equity Act is section 15 which empowers the Minister of Employment and Labour to prescribe numerical targets for sectors at all occupational levels to ensure the equitable representation of suitably qualified people from designated groups. This is followed by section 42, which deals with the assessment of organisational compliance. Specifically, section 42 deals with if the employer is complying with numerical targets prescribed in that sector by the Minister. Finally, section 53(6) is a list of five criteria that an employer must meet to obtain a compliance certificate. Key to this is section 53, which has always been in the Employment Equity Act but has not been operational. It will be put into effect by these amendments. This will mean that State contracts may only be issued to employers who have been certified as being compliant with the obligations under the Employment Equity Act. One of these is the requirement to achieve the above numeral sector targets prescribed by the Minister.
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SEIFSA NEWS
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JANUARY / FEBRUARY 2022
