Day: July 14, 2022

Employment and Labour in collaboration with SAIOSH hosts a Webinar on the Asbestos Abatement Regulations 2020

The Directorate: Occupational Health and Hygiene (OHH) within the Inspection and Enforcement Services (IES) branch of the Department of Employment and Labour in a partnership with the South African Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (SAIOSH) will host a Webinar on the Asbestos Abatement Regulations 2020.

The Webinar on the 2nd of August 2022 will be held on Zoom. The aim of the Webinar is to provide external stakeholders and specifically registered asbestos contractors with information on the first few months of implementation of the Asbestos Abatement Regulations, that were published in November 2020.

From November 2020, the Department has given time for building owners to identify asbestos in place, develop inventories and management plans after promulgation, this transitional period has now passed. The Department also gazetted an amendment to the Regulations that will be discussed at the Webinar. In addition, guidance will be provided on the interpretation of the Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) Act and practical aspects of risk assessments.

The Webinar will be addressed by Department of Employment and Labour’s Acting Chief Inspector, Phumi Maphaha. He will share the platform with the Department’s Senior Specialist: Occupational Health and Hygiene Bulelwa Huna; Department of Employment and Labour Specialist: Occupational Health & Hygiene Elize Lourens; Specialist OHH Warren Mallon and Chemical Stressor Technical Assistant Patience Ngubeni.

The discussions will focus on providing practical guidance to registered asbestos contractors and asbestos clients on the legislation and legal requirements.

This Webinar takes place in collaboration with SAIOSH, which is a professional body to register Occupational Health and Safety Professionals in South Africa. It is targeted at registered asbestos contractors, safety practitioners, approved inspection authorities and asbestos clients.

Meanwhile, the Department on 4th of August plans to host a similar workshop in person and this will be held in Cape Town, Milnerton.

Source: Government of South Africa

The Western Cape Government is excited at local events sector roaring back to life again

With all Covid-19 restrictions now behind South Africa, the Western Cape Government is firmly focused on economic recovery and job creation. The key to this is rejuvenating the province’s events sector, which was among the biggest casualties of the pandemic.

This coming Saturday’s South Africa and Wales rugby Test series decider at DHL Stadium is just one opportunity to help revive the sector.

Filling the 62 000 capacity DHL Stadium will give Cape Town’s events industry that much-needed push to claw back revenue and jobs, while at the same time confirming the city and province’s reputation as important tourist and investment destinations.

The Western Cape Government cannot wait to see packed stands once again at the venue.

In the past major sporting events, such as Rugby Sevens tournaments, have injected hundreds of millions into the local economy. One such tournament staged at DHL Stadium several years ago, brought in more than R750 million alone.

But such sporting extravaganzas had to be put on hold for over two years due to Covid-19. The full reopening of the events sector, with restrictions like limits on crowd sizes, now scrapped, is critical to aiding the province’s general economic revival, and this coming Saturday’s match is the perfect opportunity to announce: the Mother City and Western Cape are open for business again.

“We are delighted that we will once again see a full stadium in the Western Cape, after what has been a difficult two years for our events economy,” Provincial Finance and Economic Opportunities Minister, Mireille Wenger said.

The Minister added: “This is not only a moment to celebrate our country and the Springboks, but it is also symbolic of the recovery that we are seeing in our tourism and hospitality sector. A full stadium means more jobs, and so we look forward to many more sold out events across the province.”

Provincial Cultural Affairs and Sport Minister, Anroux Marais, said: “Sports tourism is an important contributor to our local economy.”

The Minister added through bringing full capacity crowds to our stadia, we support not only our sports federations but also vendors, cleaning staff, security teams, and every other person and business who earn a living through these major events.

Saturday’s game is just the beginning.

Marais said: “We are looking forward to a number of big tournaments coming to Cape Town, including the upcoming Rugby World Cup Sevens, the Hockey Masters World Cup, as well as the Netball World Cup in 2023.”

In December, the World Sevens Series also returns to Cape Town; yet another chance to fill up DHL Stadium and get our events and tourism sector back up and running.

Source: Government of South Africa

The Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF), an entity of the Department of Employment and Labour, will be hosting an employer advocacy session at the Tropicana Hotel in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal, on Thursday 21 July 2022.

The purpose of the session is to educate and engage employers on the UIF’s systems, benefits, services, processes and compliance with legislation.

Discussions at the session will include:

uFiling and Electronic Declarations;

Covid-19 TERS and Workers Affected By Unrest (WABU);

Assisting employers in distress & UIF job creation & preservation programmes;

UIF awareness on fraudulent use of employer profiles;

UIF Compliance including E-Compliance system;

Inspection and Enforcement Services; and

Compensation Fund.

Source: Government of South Africa

South Africa’s economic growth and the inclusion of black businesses will come under the spotlight on Wednesday.

Government and the private sector will next week descend on the Sandton Convention Centre for the inaugural Black Industrialists and Black Exporters Conference. Over 500 delegates are expected to be at the event.

Addressing the media on Thursday, Trade, Industry and Competition Minister Ebrahim Patel said the conference was an opportunity to reflect on how far the country has come with regards to economic inclusion.

The conference will be broken into five broad components. These include a keynote address by President Cyril Ramaphosa and several panel discussions; the launch of important growth initiatives like the black export network; and a marketplace to showcase the products produced by small businesses.

“The fourth one will be the Presidential Awards that will be issued for Excellence in Business. The final part of it will be the release of research results on the impact of various policy measures to promote economic inclusion and grow the base participation in our economy,” he said.

Minister Patel said the spotlight of the conference will be the 500 businesses “that are making, growing, and digging things, adding to GDP, employing South Africans, exploiting their products. It’s about emphasising the opportunities that they have to grow the economy”.

He said they are entrepreneurs – what they know about is making and producing food, making chemicals, cosmetics and the other products.

“We’ll also look at structures that limit the opportunities for Black shareholders to play a meaningful role in the economy,” he said.

While government did not create industrialists, the State did create a supportive and enabling environment that either enables industrialists to take off or that limits their ability to do so.

Black businesses have the same challenges as other businesses.

“They have challenges getting raw materials on time, at reasonable prices, getting the right technology, [and] fixing the technology when it breaks down.

“[They have challenges of] recruiting a great team of managers and workers, training everybody, getting the infrastructure in place, including public infrastructure that they need, getting customers – let’s call it the traditional problems of business.”

Above this, black businesses face challenges of limited access to capital and finance.

He said it was for this reason that government started the black industrialist programme to find ways of supporting the entrepreneurial energy in spite of these challenges.

At the conference, government will outline many of the elements of the programme.

“We work in partnership with businesses [that] are working with black suppliers, bringing them into the supply chain. This has been replicated in many other parts of the economy,” he said.

The programme was an element of a wider broad-based black economic empowerment society-wide programme.

These, he said, include worker ownership, union investment schemes, women-owned community schemes that bring together capital and then find ways of increasing the equity in businesses.

Source: South African Government News Agency

Higher Education, Science and Innovation Minister, Dr Blade Nzimande, says the South African delegation’s recent visit to the United Kingdom will propel South Africa’s hydrogen economy to greater heights.

According to the Department of Science and Innovation (DSI), the team representing South Africa explored potential trade relationships to support high technology manufacturing centred on the hydrogen economy.

The delegation included the DSI, which developed the Hydrogen Society Roadmap recently launched by the Minister.

Other members represented Airports Company South Africa, the Limpopo Economic Development Agency, Trade and Investment KwaZulu-Natal, the Gauteng Department of Economic Development, and academia.

The delegation went to Teesside, which is at the forefront of the UK’s transition to a green economy and is an international gateway to the UK.

“The city has vital assets and capabilities that have both national importance and global reach in the sectors of advanced manufacturing, energy, digital and health innovation, which are at the core of the city’s economy.”

DSI said its ambition is to lead the UK’s transition to a green economy and expand its international trading role.

“The mission was aimed at establishing strategic partnerships that will promote the manufacturing of locally developed intellectually property across South Africa’s hydrogen corridor, and the export of green hydrogen and green ammonia to the UK market,” said Nzimande.

South Africa’s Hydrogen Society Roadmap, launched earlier this year, aims to contribute to an inclusive, sustainable and competitive hydrogen economy by 2050, as part of a just transition to a net zero economy.

“One of the key outcomes of the roadmap will be the creation of an export market for green hydrogen and green ammonia, and the creation of a manufacturing sector for hydrogen products and components,” said the Minister.

The DSI Director-General, Dr Phil Mjwara, made a presentation to UK stakeholders detailing South Africa’s hydrogen journey, which started in 2007 with the Cabinet’s approval of the National Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies Research, Development and Innovation Strategy.

This led to the Hydrogen South Africa initiative, through which the DSI is promoting the use of local platinum group metal resources to create knowledge and skills, and enable the development of high-value commercial activities in hydrogen and fuel cell technologies.

South Africa signed a bilateral agreement with the UK on cooperation in science and technology in 1995, with climate change, biotechnology, astronomy and global change identified as areas for collaboration.

One of the key outcomes of the mission to Teesside was to expand the existing agreement through a memorandum of understanding setting out identified potential collaboration opportunities on the hydrogen economy.

The DSI is interested in collaborating with the UK2070 Commission to share ideas on how to use hydrogen economy opportunities to deal with poverty, unemployment and inequality.

The UK2070 Commission is an independent inquiry into the city and regional inequalities in the UK, which will include a review of the policy and spatial issues related to the UK’s long-term city and regional development.

The delegation, which returned on Thursday, 14 July 2022, agreed to collaborate in numerous areas, deepen existing collaboration instruments such as the Newton Fund, finalise agreements, establish working groups and collectively sign the memorandum of understanding.

Source: South African Government News Agency