Pretoria - Seventy officials of the Home Affairs department have been charged for opposing the revised working hours schedule, Minister Malusi Gigaba said on Wednesday.
“As I speak to you, they are only 70, out of our total number of approximately 10 000 officials in the department who have been charged for not complying with the new working hours,” Gigaba told reporters in Pretoria. “Over 9 930 officials have complied and so I am not worried about the 70.”
He said public servants should understand that their work is to serve the public.
“It doesn’t mean that the public serves you. The working hours are about optimizing services for our customers and people who will be visiting South Africa and departing,” he said.
“I cannot see how we can structure the Department of Home Affairs such that we make our officials happy, but not the public. After all, we are a department that serves the public, not our officials.”
Thousands of home affairs officials, through unions, threatened to go on strike following the introduction of a six-day working week arrangement last month.
Gigaba said the home affairs staff were still working 40 hours per week under the new arrangement.
He announced on Wednesday that working hours at selected ports of entry into South Africa had been extended ahead of the Easter holidays.
Almost 200 officials have volunteered to work at the ports of entry during the Easter period. They will add to the department’s staff manning the ports of entry.
Gigaba said consultations with the officials, regarding the extension of hours over Easter was complete.
“You consult to a point. At some point you must show leadership, be decisive and act as governments. That is what we have done,” he said.
“I think our officials understand very well, save for those few who do it for their own reasons. The new operating hours do not change the 40 hour working week. Overtime is still overtime.”
He said the department was “optimising” the availability of it’s services for clients.
During last year’s Easter weekend, immigration services processed 754 616 travellers at South Africa’s national ports of entry which included land, sea and airports.
The travellers included 535 960 foreign nationals and 218 000 South Africans.
The highest volume ports of entry for the 2014 Easter period were Oliver Tambo International Airport, Beit Bridge, Maseru Bridge, Lebombo, Ficksburg, Oshoek and Groblers Bridge. The top five nationalities recorded as either arriving or departing were from Lesotho, Zimbabwe, Swaziland, Botswana, Mozambique and United Kingdom.
Gigaba said travellers can expect “swift service with the highest levels of professionalism, efficiency” during the Easter weekend.
African News Agency