Pretoria - The first day of the Department of Employment and Labour's mega blitz inspection in Pretoria has led to the arrests of eight foreign nationals and two employers for non-compliance.
Throughout the week the department is running an inspection in collaboration with the Department of Home Affairs' Immigration Services and police, where its inspectors are to measure amongst others employer's compliance with the Basic Conditions of Employment Act, Sectoral Determination including the National Minimum Wage act, Unemployment Insurance act as well as the Compensation of Occupational Injuries and Disease act.
The department's Inspector-General Aggy Moiloa said the foreign national employees and two employers were arrested at the Metro Home City World store in the city centre at the corner of Du Toit Street and Johannes Ramokhoase Street in Pretoria.
“In this particular workplace, we arrested eight people after they were found not to have the right documents because they are foreign nationals. The right documents being work visas and work requirements in that space. Inspectors from Home Affairs arrested them, and they were subsequently dispatched for further processing."
“In terms of the immigration law, when you find such discrepancies or non-compliance, the employer also gets arrested because they would have violated the Immigration Act. The employer was taken alongside the people that were found not in position of the right documents,” Moiloa further explained.
The department has also issued immediate prohibition notices against the use of eight other employees at the store, due to the contravention of the Occupational Health and Safety Act.
The prohibited employees were found to be unqualified to work without proper Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) such as suitable shoes and uniform while working in the packing of appliances area.
According to the regulation and the Act, no one is supposed to work in hazardous areas unless they are provided with the proper PPE, and as a result, such employees would according to the department not be rendering their work until their employers provided them with proper PPE.
Despite the notices issued, according to the act Moiloa said the prohibited employees were still entitled to their salaries even when they were off duty until their employers complied.
In addition to that, the employers were instructed to pay back two employees' monies after they were left to buy their own work uniforms which were against the law.
The Inspector-General said the mega blitz inspections were formed by various teams “flooding” areas in and around Gauteng in Silverton, Midrand and other places.
The national multi-stakeholder mega blitz inspections started in 2020 in the Eastern Cape with the Gauteng Province being the eighth province and to be followed by the Northern Cape.
Moiloa said during the inspections the department's officials looked to test compliance with the various basket of legislation that they were tasked with enforcing, which according to national statistics and previous inspections often revealed not adequate compliance levels by businesses.
“We will be inspecting up to Thursday and on Friday we have a session or seminar where we are going to take stock but also take time to reflect with our stakeholders around the compliance in and around Gauteng.”
The department added that Spar stores around Pretoria were also currently under investigation.
Pretoria News