South Africa’s latest skills recruitment drive is an initiative infused with a sense of urgency by its driver, Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, and given a fresh operational impetus by an old hand in the skills development arena, Glen Fisher, director of policy at the National Business Initiative (NBI).
Set to be launched later this month, the Joint Initiative for Priority Skills Acquisition (Jipsa) is seen by the government as a key component of its recently unveiled economic growth plan, the Accelerated Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa (Asgisa). Two weeks ago, it received full Cabinet endorsement, including the appointment of the NBI to oversee its day-to-day operations as its secretariat.
The initiative is tasked with searching for the range of technical and professional skills that are required to drive South Africa’s infrastructure programme. These range from engineers and project managers to financial managers.
Fisher is first to acknowledge the mammoth task that lies ahead. “No one is quite prepared for the task,” he says, emphasising the importance of joint effort on the part of the government, business and labour, the three parties represented at the task team and technical working group of Jipsa. The task team is to be chaired by the deputy president and consists of Cabinet members and CEOs of large companies, with AngloGold Ashanti’s Bobby Godsell among those who have agreed to serve.
For his part, Fisher brings extensive experience in the further education and training (FET) field. He served on former education minister Sibusiso Bhengu’s Higher Education Commission on FET. And between 1999 and 2004, in his capacity as director of education and enterprise at NBI, he oversaw an R85-million project on the restructuring of technical colleges.
For Jipsa, he would like to see decisions being acted upon. After the launch at the end of March, the working group has to collate existing information on skills audits that have been performed in various sectors just to get a picture of the extent of the problem. Engagements with the Construction Industry Development Board and the Department of Public Works have already begun.
But the idea of bringing business, labour and government together brings to mind the National Economic Development and Labour Council, which has been accused of degenerating into a talk shop by indulging labour’s approach of consensus seeking and needing three meetings to decide where to hold the next meeting.
Fisher says the process needs “political leadership and authority”.
“Government should lead the process,” says Vic van Vuuren, the chief operating officer of Business Unity South Africa who also serves on the technical working group. He says business has seen “turf wars” in the skills development arena, with a lack of clarity on how various bodies need to interact. The key to Jipsa’s success, he says, will be “implementation and coordination”.
Fisher sees Jipsa’s three-year mandate as a chance to “cure short-term symptoms” by training for the medium to long term. This will be by trawling the globe to find the necessary expertise and scouring the country to lure retired artisans out of the sun into the workplace.
Labour will be in a difficult position in Jipsa. Not only because it may be seen as a drag on decision- making, but also because much of the skills that are to be sourced are not unionised.
Patrick Craven, spokesperson for the Congress of South African Trade Unions, says unions accept that there is a skills crisis but that “sometimes, business uses it as an excuse for low levels of investment”.
Craven says the federation’s biggest reservation is that Jipsa should not duplicate sector education authorities. Raisibe Morathi, economic adviser to Mlambo-Ngcuka, says this will not be the case. “If anything, they will complement them.”
On decision-making, Craven says “The consensus-seeking approach is essential. It can be made more effecient, but the principle must not be abandoned.” Finally, Craven argues that unions represent all of labour as a whole and not just their members.
Jipsa’s legacy may very well be the formation of a human resources development council, an idea already mooted by the deputy president.
But before that legacy is entrenched, the government will have to find skilled workers, wherever they might be, whatever they may cost.