Labour Minister Mildred Oliphant's tardiness has resulted in thousands of skilled people losing out on job opportunities, and she should be fired, said the DA. The Department of Labour's own figures, as reported to the parliamentary portfolio committee on labour, show that the department only processed 53% of corporate applications for working visas for skilled professionals last year.According to the government's figures, this led to a loss of almost 13000 work opportunities, some of which the Department of Labour blames on the onerous visa rules the Department of Home Affairs introduced.Furthermore, skilled people who want to work in South Africa are given no reason why their application was unsuccessful. They are simply told their application has been rejected and they must forfeit the R1400 application fee.Over the past few weeks, The Times has been sent from pillar to post in an attempt to get comment from the Department of Labour on the matter.Now, DA MP Ian Ollis has called on President Jacob Zuma to sack Oliphant for not doing her job, and being a "wrecking ball" to job opportunities. He has listed several other examples of her poor performance, including:Promoting Herbert Mkhize, the former executive director of Nedlac, to the position of special adviser to the minister after he was found to have allegedly enriched himself at taxpayers' expense;Failing to attend sessions in the National Assembly to answer questions on labour matters over the past six months;Failing to attend parliamentary portfolio committee meetings on labour over the past six years;Failing to attend the National Assembly debate on the proposed national minimum wage; andPutting a senior legal adviser in her department on three years of paid suspension at a cost of R3.4-million to the taxpayer.Ollis says: "South Africa is facing an unemployment crisis that is leaving millions of young South Africans without an opportunity to pursue a life they value."This crisis is being exacerbated by the failures of the minister and the Department of Labour."Without swift action in this regard, our labour sector will continue to decay and haemorrhage even more jobs and economic growth at the same time."..