South Africa hands over SADC ELS baton to Namibia
The South African Minister of Labour, Mildred Oliphant will hand over the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Employment and Labour Sector baton to the Namibian counterpart in August 2018. The hand over will officially take place in June/July this year.
This is after the Joint Tripartite Technical Committee(JTTC) meeting attended by delegates from government, business and labour unanimously nominated Namibia as the next chair of the body after South Africa suggested the name of its western neighbour as its successor. This was supported by other member states. The nomination is in line with Namibia taking over the Chairship of SADC from South Africa. Namibia accepted the nomination and promised to continue with the SADC ELS programmes.
Member states represented at the convention include Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Seychelles, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
Meanwhile, a host of reports were presented at the assembly, including: Ratification Status of ELP and Domestic Workers’ Convention 189 and Implementation of the SADC Decent Work Programme, Assessment on ratification of International Labour Organisation (ILO) Convention 189, and Midterm Review of the SADC Decent Work Programme 2013/19.
The reports presented by the SADC Secretariat and member states highlighted obstacles, observations and recommendations which were accepted by the sitting and therefore to be escalated to the Ministerial Meeting taking place this Thursday and Friday at the same venue.
The JTTC meeting concludes tomorrow with the finalisation of recommendations to the SADC Meeting of ministers responsible for employment and labour and social partners. The meeting will be chaired by Minister Mildred Oliphant from 1 to 2 March 2018.
Enquiries:
Sipho Ndebele
Cell: 076 910 1750
Teboho Thejane
Cell: 082 697 0694
