01 Sep 2024

Ministry of Labour and Home Affairs has issued emergency and long term work and residence permits to employees of Sherashiya Propriety Limited.

Minister of Labour and Home Affairs, Honourable Annah Mokgethi said this when  responding  to a question in Parliament on Friday.

Minister Mokgethi said 43 emergency work permits were issued and valid from February 15 to May 14 and the permits were further extended to August 27 while eight of the workers had applied for long term permits. She added that the company was also issued with 29 long term work permits which were valid from August 23 last year until July 31, 2026.“These applications were for both work and residence permit and were all approved,” she said.

She also said applications were submitted to the ministry at Botswana One Stop Service Centre (BOSC) for processing on August 17 last year and were all issued within six working days. She also told Parliament that there were no applications which were rejected or unapproved belonging to Sherashiya Propriety Limited. “This therefore means the provision for duration of stay is not applicable,” she said. She noted that all applications for work permits were required to be accompanied by an advertisement to justify that attempts were made to source skills in the local market.

Furthermore, Parliament was informed that the company was in no exception as it followed the process. “I can confirm that the jobs were advertised in the DailyNews on June 22 last year,” she said.

She further stated that 29 workers were all of Indian origin and possessed secondary school certificate and relevant work experience and all the workers had contracts of employment which conformed to the laws of Botswana. “According to their contracts of employment, these workers earn P 3 000, which is below the threshold for tax, therefore have not registered for tax,” she said. She further said the workers had individual bank accounts with local banks in Botswana.

The applicants, she said, had been appointed as plant operators or technicians and smelter dismantling specialists and the jobs workers had been appointed to, were not complex, however, they required certain expertise which they had.

“For example, some of the work require experts that are familiar with dismantling the smelter as well as working in the plant under extreme hot conditions. There are 25 locals at the smelter and 75 at the plant that are working with and understudying the non-citizens as per the provisions of the Immigration Act,” she said.

She said there were 25 Batswana working at BCL smelter doing various jobs such as riggers, SHE officers, scrap supervisor, mechanical foreman and fitters.

“The remaining 75 working at the plant do jobs such as skimming of cables, loading and stacking,” she said. She further informed Parliament that the Immigration Act also empowered the minister to cancel the work permit after being satisfied that the object for which the permit was issued or renewed had been completed or no longer existed or no longer in the interest of Botswana. “These are the only circumstances as under which I can cancel the permits,” she said.

Selebi Phikwe MP, Mr Dithapelo Keorapetse had asked the minister if she was aware of applications for work and residence permits by alien employees of a company called Sherashiya Propriety Limited, incorporated in 2022, which had recently bought the BCL smelter plant. Mr Keorapetse also wanted the minister to state and explain the number of applications for residence and work permits, when the applications were made and how soon were they approved or rejected after submission.

He also asked the minister to update Parliament on, among others, the number of rejected and unapproved applications and duration of stay applied for and whether there were adverts for the job vacancies available at the company.

Moreover, he asked the minister to state the number of Batswana currently employed at the BCL smelter plant and their roles. Ends