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There appears to be a good chance the Pretoria Deeds Office will reopen on Monday as planned following its relocation from the central business district to new offices at the old Berea Park Stadium, despite labour unions raising issues about the move.
Gracia Rikhotso, chief negotiator of the Public Service Association (PSA), the majority union at the deeds office, told Moneyweb on Wednesday the issues with parking, overcrowding and a shuttle service for employees from the old to the new building have already been dealt with and are no longer an issue for employees.
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Rikhotso does not expect any problems with the reopening of the deeds office on Monday (17 April) as planned.
“From the side of the PSA, from the discussions we have had and the plans that have been put in place so far, we are not expecting any disruptions,” she said.
However, Zama Mpekule, a representative of the National Education Health and Allied Workers Union (Nehawu), a minority union at the deeds office, said these issues have not yet been fully addressed, but that the Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development (DALRRD) gave it an undertaking at a meeting on Tuesday that the concerns would be resolved.
Mpekule said a further meeting is scheduled to take place on Friday.
If the union is not satisfied that the issues have been fully addressed “the deeds office will not open on Monday because it will be a clear betrayal” of the department’s undertaking, he said.
Problems surrounding the relocation of the Pretoria Deeds Office to new premises surfaced last week.
The DALRRD stressed in a statement last Thursday that the Pretoria Deeds Office would be closed for business until 16 April due to the relocation of operations to its new offices and that operations would resume on 17 April at the new premises.
It added that deeds office management wished to apologise for the inaccurate communication sent last Wednesday (5 April).
This was a reference to Chief Registrar of Deeds Audrey Gwangwa advising that “the Pretoria Deeds Office will be closed indefinitely with effect from 6 April 2023 until further notice”.
This notification was contrary to the arrangements previously communicated to conveyancers by the department and was apparently prompted by the failure to resolve issues with the unions.
This led to the Pretoria Attorneys Association (PAA) indicating that it was considering legal action to compel the deeds office to resume its services, resulting in the DALRRD back-tracking on its communicated indefinite closure of the office.
Donald Mokgehle, chair of the property committee of the PAA, said on Wednesday the committee is hopeful the issues at the deeds office will be resolved and that it will reopen on Monday.
“Should that not happen, then we will consider our position,” he said.
Rikhotso said on Wednesday the PSA has agreed in principle that the deeds office will reopen on Monday.
“Employees from the deeds office, as we speak, are busy packing their boxes, so come 17 April the offices for clients of the deeds office will be operational,” says Rikhotso.
“Then we are obviously going to have a discussion on the issues that cut across not only the deeds office [but the entire DALRRD] at the meeting that is scheduled to take place this Friday. Depending on the discussions that take place, we will then be able to have a decision and a position on the relocation in totality.
“But understanding the importance of the deeds office, and the fact that other officials of agriculture have not yet moved into the new building, we are certain that the employees from the deeds office are in a position to move to offices because … parking, overcrowding and shuttle services have already been dealt with and are not an issue for the deeds office employees.”
Rikhotso adds that when the PSA started consulting with the department, it tabled its plan on how staff would be shuttled and those who do not have parking at the new building would get transport that has already been allocated to move them from one building to the other.
Rikhotso says there are proposals the PSA will table at Friday’s meeting to eliminate the overcrowding concern.
She says this involves possibly not moving all the deeds office employees who are meant to move to the new building “given the limitations in terms of space”.
“We are not an unreasonable union. We look at issues that would have impacted the move, and given what we have already received as a commitment from the employer, we were amenable to the fact and are convinced the deeds office will be operational on 17 April 2023, which is the target date,” she says.
Mpekule says the parking, overcrowding and shuttle service issues were first raised with the DALRRD director-general three or four weeks ago – and that the crux of these issues was the non-consultation on the entire project to move people by the DALRRD.
“I don’t think it would have gone to this extent if they [the DALRRD] had consulted with labour before they moved people to the new building,” he says.
Mpakule says Nehawu members had informed the union about the date of the move to the new building and that there was insufficient parking for all employees in the department, and asked it to engage management regarding these concerns.
He says Nehawu had asked the DALRRD whether it could provide a shuttle service for a limited time of 12 months.
Mpekule says Nehawu does not have a problem with the open plan offices at the new building but “it is so squeezed and the tables are so small”.
He says the Covid-19 pandemic is no longer an issue but questioned what would happen if the pandemic returns.
Mpakule says the low dividers between desks are inappropriate because employees can see the laptops of their colleagues “on the other side”.
He questions what will happen if an employee has to do work via a virtual platform.
“It will be chaos,” he says.
This article originally appeared on Moneyweb and was republished with permission.
Read the original article here.
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