MPS VOTE OF NO CONFIDENCE ON CMAC

LOBAMBA – Several Members of Parliament yesterday passed a vote of no confidence in the operations of the CMAC.

CMAC is the Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration Commission, a parastatal under the Ministry of Labour and Social Security. Nkwene MP Vulimpompi Nhleko submitted that the government enterprise was toothless as seemingly none of their decisions stood.

He said instead what would happen was that all the matters were referred to the Industrial Court. This was during the debate of the ministry’s end of year report for the financial year 2018/19 by the ministry’s portfolio committee which was chaired by Ndzingeni MP Lutfo Dlamini. 

He wondered what the intention of creating the CMAC was if all the cases were then referred to the courts and said in his view it had no reason to operate.  Meanwhile, Hosea MP Mduduzi Mabuza said the CMAC had changed in that it only listened to the side of the employee instead of both sides.

He alleged that employers were treated like animals. “They are very harsh yet they do not have the right to be judges and they have stopped playing their role as the middle man,” said MP Mabuza.

Meanwhile, Mhlangatane MP Madala Mhlanga said some of the matters reported at the CMAC remained unresolved for a very long time and said it could take years before they were resolved.

scrapped

Motshane MP Robert Magongo submitted that the CMAC must be scrapped as a department because seemingly no one took its decisions seriously.  He said as a result people always forwarded their cases to the Industrial Courts.

He further said the Commissioners at the CMAC should not take any sides and said some of them were not objective in the decisions they made.  “Why is it that the CMAC decisions are not respected?” wondered Magongo. 

He said if the mandate of the CMAC was no longer being served then it should be scrapped.
In response, the Minister of Labour and Social Security Makhosi Vilakati said the challenge at the CMAC was that they were understaffed, especially because the trained commissioners were always being poached by big private companies. He said the ministry would soon be presenting the Employment Bill in Parliament which would address some of the staffing issues.

Vilakati said it was not that the CMAC seemed to side with employees, but stated that in most instances employers would abuse the system and once a certificate of unresolved dispute was issued, the employers were very quick to run to the Industrial Court.

He said for example, once the Employment Bill was passed, there would be a set amount of cases which could only be dealt with by the CMAC in claims instead of what was happening presently where everyone could just rush to the Industrial Court.

He said the commissioners did not have a negative attitude towards employers, but insisted that the latter should also follow the law.  “We will strengthen the institution because in some instances we have found ourselves having to temporarily hire lawyers who would handle particular cases,” said Vilakati.

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