Enjoy an additional day of leisure and celebration this December! President Cyril Ramaphosa has declared the 27th of December 2022 a Public Holiday, in lieu of Christmas Day falling on a Sunday.
Remember that Section 2(1) of the Public Holidays Act contains the following stipulation: “whenever a public holiday falls on a Sunday, the following Monday shall be a public holiday”.
The Presidency further detailed the following in a recent notice: “the Monday following the 25 December 2022 is another public holiday, Day of Goodwill”.
Payroll & HR departments, please note that this does impact your payroll and leave processing for December 2022. Please check with your payroll software solutions provider on the best action to take as you may have to manually capture an additional Public Holiday in your payroll system.
If you are using PSIber Payroll, this Public Holiday has already been updated in the latest release that’s been rolled out on the evening of 8 December 2022.
Here is the official notice from The Presidency – Pretoria:
South Africans will enjoy Tuesday, 27 December 2022, as a public holiday in lieu of Christmas Day falling on a Sunday.
This follows a declaration to this effect by President Cyril Ramaphosa in terms of Section 2A of the Public Holidays Act (Act No 36 of 1994).
In terms of the 2022 annual calendar, Christmas Day, 25 December, falls on a Sunday.
Section 2(1) of the Public Holidays Act provides that “whenever a public holiday falls on a Sunday, the following Monday shall be a public holiday”.
In this instance, the Monday following the 25 December 2022 is another public holiday, Day of Goodwill.
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 view of the unique circumstances around the 2022 calendar, and to uphold relevant labour law principles and practices, President Ramaphosa has declared Tuesday, 27 December, as a public holiday in lieu of Christmas Day.