Minister of Labour Membathisi Mdladlana has given the sector education and training authorities (Setas) until the end of June to come up with a master plan on how they will use the more than R2-billion in unspent funds currently in their coffers.
Despite commitments made at the Growth and Development Summit last year to accelerate skills development in the country, Setas have yet again failed to spend billions earmarked for skills development.
”It is appalling that Setas still have such an enormous amount of unspent money, when the country is faced with a critical shortage of skills,” Mdladlana told the Mail & Guardian this week.
Setas were established in March 2000 to provide training for workers and the unemployed.
They receive an annual budget of R3-billion from a tax levy imposed on all companies.
The sectoral agencies came under fire last year, when the total they had failed to disburse, over three years, reached R3,2-billion.
”Now, after having looked at their preliminary financial reports for 2004, I am not so sure that they are going to bring change this time around.
”Of course the auditing process is still under way, but when I looked at the preliminary financial reports, I found that there are Setas that continue to sit with huge amounts of unspent money,” said Mdladlana.
”Although we don’t know the exact figure, I don’t think it is going to be much different from what it was last time. It will still be in the range of R2-billion or so … I told them [the Setas] during our meeting this week that by the end of June they must tell me five key areas [of] focus, so that they are not all over the show.”
He said he would announce in August which Setas would be closed down, merged or taken over by his department. His decision will be determined by individual Setas’ performances.
The minister first announced his intention to act on under-performing Setas in July last year when Parliament passed amendments to the Skills Development Act. The amendments, for the first time, gave the minister powers to take over or merge poorly performing Setas.