Implementation of the National Minimum Wage (NMW) by the scheduled date of 1 May will not be possible, Labour minister Mildred Oliphant announced yesterday.
The reason, she said, was that Parliament would be unable to finalise the necessary Bills in time. Oliphant also pointed out that Parliament had received high volumes of written and oral public submissions on the NMW.
She said that there was insufficient time to process the Bills as they had only been referred to Parliament in November last year – and Parliament was set to go into recess this week and was only likely to return towards the end of April.
The Bills propose the setting of a national minimum wage at R20 per hour – to be reviewed annually – except for domestic and farm workers whose minimum wage will be set at R15 and R18 an hour.
