MINISTER of Higher Education and Training Blade Nzimande is a bit of a fox.
On Thursday the minister, who is actually better known as the general secretary of the SA Communist Party, held a type of public meeting with members of Business South Africa (Busa), chiefly to exchange ideas on skills development - a tragic story that should find resonance throughout the country.
In South Africa there are about nine million jobless, who have little real chance of finding work. It is these people who during the Mbeki administration were labelled the "forgotten generation" - without training, often even without any schooling worth mentioning, and existing literally from hand to mouth.
What nobody dares say is that it might be easier for everyone if they just disappeared.
But they won't. To tell the truth, in December 2007 they sent representatives to the ANC's Polokwane conference, where they enjoyed the lion's share of participation in that December's events on the campus of the University of Limpopo (formerly University of the North).
The Polokwane decisions need to come to fruition in skills development in particular.
For that reason control of the 22 sectoral training authorities, the Setas, which until now fell under Minister of Labour Membathisi Mdladlana, have been transferred to Nzimande's new portfolio of higher education and training.
Indeed, it would seem that the ministry of labour, a highly sensitive portfolio in the Mbeki government, will lose its most important sphere of influence under President Jacob Zuma.
Nedlac, for which Mdladlana also carried political responsibility, has been shifted to Ebrahim Patel's new ministry of economic development.
All that therefore remains in the labour portfolio is the application of the Employment Equity Act, which principally means having the role of monitoring affirmative action. The rest of this department's functions involve routine administration such as the registration of trade unions.
Controversial comments
Mdladlana survived the takeover by the Zuma group, but in the process was stripped of his most important powers. And if he can justifiably be criticised for one thing, it is his handling of the Setas - which Nzimande will in future be responsible for.
Since accepting the post Nzimande has made several utterances upsetting some but gaining political ground with others, such as that admission requirements at universities should be lowered to make university training possible for young people who had insufficient opportunities at school to earn university admission.
On the eve of his meeting with Busa members, he even declared in a speech at Wits that the curricula for university courses should be adapted to challenge neo-liberalism.
According to him, the ideological companions of neo-liberalism are greed and selfishness, while South Africa needs a system of training that fosters values such as social solidarity and caring.
But that's not where he will find a solution to South Africa's skills problems. For that he needs Busa. There is reasonable consensus that South Africa's unemployment crisis is much more of a skills crisis. We have enough jobs, but we just don't have the proper people to perform the jobs.
The meeting with Busa sparked comments similar to those of the day before. Among other things, Nzimande declared himself in favour of a countrywide student-aid scheme.
"I have a vision of a single national bursary centre. This would not mean that a company could not itself award bursaries to students it wished to help, but a national scheme would ensure that needy students received support," he said.
Responding to a question on how much money there currently was in the Seta reserves, and how the scheme would be handled, he had no answer. "I don't know how much money there is. If you ask me in a couple of days, I will probably be able to tell you," he replied.
Questions directed to Busa representatives surprisingly revealed they knew how much funds the Setas held.
Baby and bathwater dilemma
"There's R4.2bn in the Seta reserves. Of that, R1.7bn has not been allocated to training projects. The problem is that the R2.5bn that has been allocated is being spent in dribs and drabs," disclosed one of the Busa representatives involved with Setas.
It's a political embarrassment for Nzimande to have to admit that R4.2bn of the funds allocated for training have not been spent, and it's difficult to believe he is unaware of exactly how much money the Setas have - the figure is audited regularly.
The money comes from the 1% skills levy on the salary accounts of all companies and is collected by treasury each month. Two years ago Mdladlana announced that there was R3.8bn in the Seta reserve fund. This has therefore now been boosted by R400m - which is an indication that the Seta controlling bodies, comprising business and union representatives, cannot agree as to which training programmes to spend the money on.
Strictly speaking, the money belongs to the business sector. When the accumulated Seta funds came to light two years ago, Bheki Sibiya, Busa CEO at the time, demanded an amendment to hand control of Seta money to business sector organisations. This fell on deaf ears.
It now appears that Nzimande wants to "nationalise" the money and use it to help finance training colleges.
Vusi Mabena, chairperson of the Busa committee for skills development and adviser on skills development for the Chamber of Mines, says he is under heavy pressure from certain Busa members who want the Setas totally scrapped and Busa to withdraw its participation.
"I don't agree. There are Setas that do outstanding work, such as in the mining industry and in the manufacturing sector. To scrap the Setas will mean throwing the baby out with the bathwater. We need to establish why certain Setas don't have the ability to allow the proper training to be done, and give that our attention."
There is certainly no simple solution to the problem. It's an issue that will make or break the future. And at the moment the future is being broken.
There's no time for prevarication, Dr Nzimande.
- Fin24.com