The Department of Employment and Labour is set to embark on the first leg of massive inspections on all Southern Sun hotels countrywide.
This comes after a fierce Joburg hail storm on Monday night caused the roof of the Southern Sun Rosebank hotel to collapse.
The department said that these inspections would be utilised to, inter alia, test compliance levels with all the employment laws that are regulated by the Department.
“We believe that it’ll also be an opportune time to engage with the Southern Sun Hotel’s management on processes that would contribute towards improved compliance with the labour laws, said Inspector General, Aggy Moiloa. The Department looks forward to collaborating with the employer to mitigate against factors that may hinder compliance,” the Department said in a statement on Wednesday.
Parts of Joburg, including Sandton, Midrand and the inner city were hit with a ferocious hail storm on Monday, causing extensive damage to cars and property.
In Rosebank, the structural collapse of the roof of the hotel was noted in an incident report by the Gauteng Provincial Joint Operations Centre at 9.15pm on Monday night.
“We have received reports of a partial structural collapse at a building in the vicinity of Southern Sun Rosebank.
Roof collapse at Rosebank Southern sun today around 7:10 pm. Not sure if related to the storm but was around the time of the hail. Hotel was evacuated #Hailstorm pic.twitter.com/hixmuTeA8R
Earlier this year, the company reported that it had began to pick up the pieces since the Covid-19 pandemic.
In July this year, Southern Sun, formerly known as Tsogo Sun Hotels, while taking a hit on diesel costs amid load shedding, said it had seen its revenue recover post-Covid-19 as it eyed a pipeline of events in South Africa that will boost its hotel occupancy.
In the company’s 2023 annual report, the hotel group said Southern Sun had spent R41 million on diesel in financial year 2023 (FY23) to power its owned hotels from R10m the prior year.
The financial year 2024 calendar had a number of large events including the upcoming BRICS summit in Johannesburg, multiple sporting events from the Netball World Cup, club and Test rugby, to the world table tennis championship and the second ePrix scheduled to return to Cape Town.
John Copelyn, the chairman and Marcel von Aulock, the CEO, said in a joint statement: “International visitors are showing good demand for the summer season and South Africa continues to be a popular destination for the European and US market, and so despite the challenges we remain optimistic for the year.
“Trading volumes are expected to continue to recover. The challenges we face are numerous and well documented, including load shedding and the cost of diesel, high interest rates, poor business confidence and large-scale municipal dysfunctionality across the country,” they said.
BUSINESS REPORT