Longer paid maternity and paternity leave for parents proposed |13 April 2018

Parents of newborns are expected to benefit from longer paid maternity and paternity leave as the Cabinet agrees to extend these parental leave from 14 to 16 weeks for mothers and from five days to 10 days for dads.

This was revealed yesterday at State House during a press briefing on the Cabinet’s recent meeting on Wednesday and was conducted by the secretary of state for Cabinet Affairs Mohammed Afif and the deputy cabinet secretary for institutional affairs Johny Bastienne.

Twenty four (24) legal and policy memoranda were considered by the Cabinet during the meeting chaired by President Danny Faure.

In its recent session, the Cabinet also approved for the introduction of regulations concerning the terms of employment of stevedores.

Mr Bastienne explained that this move is to provide stevedores with the conducive working conditions to secure their safety and livelihood.

“It is not an employment that is heavily regulated because the stevedores are on casual contracts and hence they do not have the proper protection under employment legislations,” Mr Bastienne stated.

“The regulation would also allow for long-serving stevedores to receive compensation for their years of service.”

The Cabinet also approved for the national minimum wage to be set at R5250, which represents an increase of R200 on the current standard, for application in January 2019.

Fuel concessions for boat owners involved in sea cucumber harvesting was also approved by the Cabinet which will put them on par with other fishermen who also receive government concessions on fuel.

However, Mr Afif explained that all fuel concessions schemes will be phased out from January 2019 in accordance with economic reform policy.

“The reason why the schemes are expected to phase out next year is because the government is not supposed to be providing concessions and subsidies to private business owners in the economic environment we are in. The government is heading towards the direction of encouraging these business to be self-sufficient,” explained Mr Afif.

Reports on pest risk analysis on imports of agricultural products from Mauritius and Turkey and which was conducted by the National Biosecurity Agency was presented to the Cabinet in the same meeting.

The reports showed that it would be quite risky to import fruit and vegetables from Mauritius due to the fact that they have around nine fruit flies that could put our local agricultural sector at risk.

Meanwhile the report on Turkey showed that importation is more or less feasible.

The Cabinet further considered audit and performance management reports on certain public enterprises and institutions.

Other items on the Cabinet’s list also included the approval of tax exemption for tuition and training fees as well as a briefing on preparatory measures to ensure greater efficiency in energy consumption in the public sector.