President Cyril Ramaphosa has declared Tuesday 27 December a public holiday.
President Cyril Ramaphosa has declared Tuesday 27 December a public holiday. This is to make up for the fact that Christmas Day falls on a Sunday, while Monday is already another public holiday.
According to section 2(1) of the Public Holidays Act, “Whenever a public holiday falls on a Sunday, the following Monday shall be a public holiday.” This year that day, Monday, is already a holiday in South Africa’s calendar to mark the Day of Goodwill.
In a statement on Thursday, the presidency said Ramaphosa had declared 27 December a holiday because not to do so would mean that workers would have only 11 paid public holidays this year. Section 5 of the Act states that “every employee shall be entitled to … at least the number of public holidays as provided for in this Act”, which is 12.
Workers who will already be on year end leave will probably not even notice the change, but this declaration has implications for those who will be working and employers who will have to pay them.
If an employee works on a public holiday, the employer must consider the provisions of the Basic Conditions of Employment Act 75 of 1997 (BCEA) when determining the amount to pay them. Section 18 of that law says an employee must be paid if they work on a public holiday and are only allowed to work if they have agreed. They can either get paid double their normal wage or negotiate time off work afterwards.
In particular, the employer must consider whether the public holiday falls on a day on which the employee would ordinarily work.
“If the Christmas holiday on Sunday 25 December moved to Monday 26 December, this would either ‘cancel’ the Day of Goodwill holiday or cause the two holidays to ‘overlap’,” the presidency said on Thursday.
The same principle applies for 1 January 2023, which falls on a Sunday. The “extra” holidays are as follows:
1 January: New Year’s Day
2 January: New Year’s Day observed