After months of dilly-dallying, President Cyril Ramaphosa has officially declared Tuesday, 27 December a public holiday. In accordance with Section 2(A) of the Public Holidays Act – “whenever a public holiday falls on a Sunday, the following Monday shall be a public holiday.”
Cyril goes public
There’s just one problem with that. The Monday following Christmas is its own public holiday – the Day of Goodwill. This left the country with no open slot to ‘spend’ the holiday. That is, until Cyril declared an ‘extra’ public holiday for the following Tuesday.
There was only one way this was going to go. It was a case of when rather than if. The current bout of load shedding probably has nothing to do with the announcement.
South Africans are entitled to twelve days off per year. Without the declaration, we’d have only seen eleven of those days come to fruition. The change was made to uphold relevant labour law principles and practices. Yeah, that’s usually how following the law works.
South Africans will enjoy Tuesday, 27 December 2022, as a public holiday in lieu of Christmas Day falling on a Sunday, following a declaration to this effect by President @CyrilRamaphosa in terms of Section 2A of the Public Holidays Act (Act No 36 of 1994) https://t.co/ClSVbL2AFK
— Presidency | South Africa 🇿🇦 (@PresidencyZA) December 8, 2022
Read More: Eskom steps up to reduce load shedding over the holidays
The same rules apply to the start of the new year, which also falls on a Sunday. The following Monday, 2 January, is officially a day off for the country.
Here are the official public holidays over the Christmas period:
- 25 December: Christmas Day
- 26 December: Day of Goodwill
- 27 December: Christmas Day (continued)
- 1 January: New Year’s Day
- 2 January: New Year’s Day (continued)
Make sure you adjust your leave days over the December shutdown. We’re sure HR was only being forgetful.