Job-creation idea vetoed

The panel put together by our finance minister two months back recommended that the clause of extension to non-parties of various bargaining councils be removed for small and medium enterprises.

This recommendation would open the way for enormous job creation. This is not a new recommendation and one would have to look at the impact assessment of legislation passed since 1994, undertaken by a high-level panel headed by former president Kgalema Motlanthe.

The panel recommended that people below a certain age, those who have been unemployed for a long time, people in rural areas and the disabled be employed without a company being required to pay a minimum wage on the same terms.

It is sad to see the government making recommendations that are in turn being vetoed by the trade union movement and the Communist Party. Is it not time people looked at what is good for SA and not what is good for an interest group?

Michael Bagraim, MP

DA shadow spokesperson on labour