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setas need more than a review, should be scrapped all together
4 June 2007
At its recent national congress the DA resolved that the Sector Education and Training Authority (Seta) system has failed substantially to meet the challenge of skills development in South Africa and that it should be scrapped in favour of placing skills development back in the hands of the private sector.
The resolution was inspired by the inefficiency and scandal-prone nature of the R5-billion Seta system and considered the following in particular:
• the Construction Seta, which is currently faced with an R8m deficit – it is technically insolvent as a result of maladministration and corruption and is unable to pay for education and training;
• the Media, Advertising, Publishing, Printing and Packaging (Mappp) Seta, whose board has been split by leadership squabbles that have rendered it completely ineffective; and,
• the increasing shortage of skilled artisans, whose average age is now 53.
The purpose of the resolution was to address the inefficiency of the Seta system, which is weighing down job-creating economic growth in South Africa with three additional layers of administration while accomplishing little.
Firstly, there is the 1% skills development levy (NSDL), which is split 80/20 between the Setas and the National Skills Fund (NSF), is raised on payroll, and therefore not only constitutes a tax on employment, but also an additional tax on income.
Secondly, the NSF, which is supposed to fund skills development during nine narrowly-defined, purpose-linked funding windows through Seta and various other avenues, is failing to do its job.
Thirdly, there are the 23 Setas that are in a continual state of flux, often incapacitated and which individually preside over lumped-together sectors that often do not have a natural affinity for one another.
The performance of the Seta system proves the unsuitability of extensive sector intervention initiatives for implementation by the undercapacited ANC government. They do not merely need to be reviewed or reduced. They need to be scrapped completely in favour of putting skills development back in the hands of the private sector.
For full article visit website mentioned below:
Coenraad Bezuidenhout, www.insidepolitics.org.za
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