In my previous article entitled THE LABOUR LAW PERSPECTIVES ON THE SPECIAL ECONOMIC ZONES (SEZs) BILL, (HB 15/2015): A DELICATE BALANCING EXERCISE, which article was published in The Zimbabwe Independant newspaper edition of 20th May 2016 and in available online, I extensively discussed the said Bill .
As an update, the Bill was initially sent to the President for his signature but the President in his wisdom refered the Bill back to Parliament on the basis that section 56 of the Bill was unconstitutional. After the Parliament attended to the Bill for the second time, the Bill was later referred back to the President on 27th October 2016 for his assent and signature. On 18th November 2016, the bill was gazetted as an Act of parliament namely, Special Economic Zones Act (Chapter 14:34) (Act 7/16).In the above mentioned article, I stated the following:
"To alley any fears of abuse of labour rights in SEZs, I am of the view that the word “may” in section 56(2) of the Bill must be changed to “shall”. In line with that view, section 56(2) of the Bill ought to be clear that the rules in question shall apply in SEZs. This has the effect of making it mandatory that the SEZs Authority makes the necessary rules and the application of the rules in SEZs becomes mandatory.
As an update, the Bill was initially sent to the President for his signature but the President in his wisdom refered the Bill back to Parliament on the basis that section 56 of the Bill was unconstitutional. After the Parliament attended to the Bill for the second time, the Bill was later referred back to the President on 27th October 2016 for his assent and signature. On 18th November 2016, the bill was gazetted as an Act of parliament namely, Special Economic Zones Act (Chapter 14:34) (Act 7/16).In the above mentioned article, I stated the following:
"To alley any fears of abuse of labour rights in SEZs, I am of the view that the word “may” in section 56(2) of the Bill must be changed to “shall”. In line with that view, section 56(2) of the Bill ought to be clear that the rules in question shall apply in SEZs. This has the effect of making it mandatory that the SEZs Authority makes the necessary rules and the application of the rules in SEZs becomes mandatory.
If the suggested changes are not made, by virtue of the use of the word ‘may’ in section 56 (1) of the Bill, the Authority remains with a discretion whether to make the rules or not. This is really not good for the employers and employees as it may take long before an election to make the rules is made. It will be worse, if the election is not to make the rules. If the rules are not made, it means the laws of the jungle will apply between the employer and employee in SEZs. On that basis there is a possibility that the establishment of SEZs may lead to labour rights violations such as minimum wages, or standard working hours, or the right to strike, or to form trade unions"
What has happened following the referal of the Bill back to Parliament is that the name 'Labour Act (Chapter 28:01)' was actually deleted from section 56 (1).This means that the Labour Act will not be suspended in the special economic zones. However , in light of section 56 (2) of the SEZs Act which was gazetted on 18th November 2016, this does not necessarily mean that employees in SEZs will continue to be governed by the Labour Act. It is therefore too early to celebrate. In the said article, my recommendation with regards section 56 (2) was to replace the word "may" with "shall" as it will not be enough for Parliament to only remove the name Labour Act in section 56 (1) without attending to section 56(2). I am pleased to note that when the Bill was finally dealt with in Parliament and gazetted, the word 'may' in section 56(2) was replaced with the word 'must' which has the same effect with the word 'shall'. What this means is that the employees in Special Economic Zones shall be governed by certain regulations to be made by SEZs Authority.
In conclusion, my last prayer to the powers that be is that the intended regulations be fair and just to both the employers and employees. Such regulations ,in my view, should not therefore limit the rights and obligations of both the employers and employees which rights and obligations are stipulated in both the Constitution and the Labour Act. The question that I will leave open today is therefore : What is the nature of the labour regulations that the Authority is required to come up with for purposes of SEZs? The nation is waiting for an answer.
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