The Department of Labour has reminded employers to submit their employment equity (EE) plan reports on time to avoid penalties.
The manual reporting closes on 1 October and the online reporting season closes in January 2018.
The EE online and manual reporting season opened on 1 September.
Robert Dzhombere, a senior practitioner at the Department of Labour’s Employment Equity Directorate, cautioned that failure by an employer to submit an EE plan report is a criminal act punishable by law.
Dzhombere was speaking on Wednesday during an EE workshop held under the theme ‘Real transformation makes business sense’ in Ekurhuleni. The workshop is part of the department's advocacy programme to create awareness on compliance with the Employment Equity Act, publicise and help prepare the employers with the requirements needed to be used when submitting their online 2017 EE reports to the department.
Dzhombere said while manual reporting is still acceptable, he however, encouraged employers to submit online, as manual documents are susceptible to many mistakes and most are of poor quality.
Since the reporting season opened on 1 September, Dzhombere said 500 employers have already accessed the system and 75 have already reported successfully.
During the 2014 financial year, 24 291 employers submitted their EE plan reports and 199 of those were manual. In 2015, 25 030 employers submitted their EE reports and 63 of those were manual. In 2016, 26 255 employers reported on their EE plans and 180 did so manually.
The national EE workshops started on 11 July 2017 and will end in Gauteng this Friday. The last two remaining workshops are planned as follows:
- Vaal (8 September) at Lord’s Signature Hotel, 53 Raymond Street – Risiville in Vereeniging for all stakeholders.
- Ekurhuleni (08 September) at Emperors Palace, 64 Jones Road, Kempton Park targeting only municipalities.
Workshops have been held in Rustenburg, Nelspruit, Thohoyandou, Polokwane, Bloemfontein, Richards Bay, Durban, East London, Port Elizabeth, Cape Town, George and Pretoria.
The workshops are targeting human resources executives and practitioners, EE Forum members, assigned senior EE managers/transformation managers, academics and trade unions, among others.
