South Africa announces Dec 27th as Public Holiday

The Presidency has announced that Tuesday December 27th 2022, will be a public holiday in lieu of Christmas Day.

Monday December 26th is celebrated as Day of Goodwill and is already a public holiday.

Ramaphosa’s spokesperson Vincent Magwenya says the president declared the 27th a public holiday to uphold relevant labour law principles and practices.

“If the holiday of Sunday 25 December were to be moved to Monday 26 December, this would cancel the holiday of 26 December or cause the two holidays – which are part of 12 paid public holidays annually – to overlap.

“This would mean workers would only have 11 paid public holidays in this year, while Section 5 of the Public Holidays Act provides that ‘… every employee shall be entitled to … at least the number of public holidays as provided for in this Act’.”

In 2016 President Jacob Zuma also declared December 27th a public holiday following a request by the Federation of Unions of South Africa.

All of which begs the question why this took so long to declare. Interesting Namibia are holding fast that they won’t give an additional holiday for Christmas Day being on Sunday this year.