The Legal Aid Board (LAB) committed itself to resolving issues around the delay of the implementation of the Occupation Specific Dispensation (OSD) for salaries for the legal sector, it said on Thursday.

The Legal Aid Board management is aware of the dissatisfaction and frustration among employees regarding the implementation of the salaries for OSD and is committed to seeing the process through to implementation, said Jerry Makokoane, Chief Operations Officer of the board.

Department of justice spokesperson Phumla Sekhonyane said the department was awaiting a memorandum to be handed over to it at the Union Buildings at 1pm.

The memorandum will be received by the department''''s chief operations officer Kgotso De Wee, said Sekhonyane.


The handing over of the memorandum was due to the high levels of dissatisfaction among staff with the implementation of the OSD which was supposed be put in place last year, said Makokoane.

The OSD for the legal sector intends to align the salaries of the legal professionals within the justice cluster and has been signed by the government and organised labour components of the Public Sector Coordinating Bargaining Council. The OSD is effective from 1 July 2007, he said.

The LAB said the implementation of OSD was a complex process and this means that other than the delay in payment of revised salary structures, staff will not be prejudiced by the delays in the implementation.

We are in ongoing contact with the department to discuss how and when to finalise OSD implementation, said Makokoane. - Sapa