MEDIA RELEASE: LABOUR MINISTER COMMENDS SETAS
24 June 2004

Minister of Labour, Membathisi Mdladlana, commended 17 of the 25 Sectoral Education and Training Authorities (SETAs) for a job well done in ensuring that the past 4 years of skills development translated into a resounding success.

Speaking during his budget vote speech before parliament in Cape Town on Tuesday Minister Mdladlana said through their dedication the Department has placed 70 000 previously unemployed people on learnerships in line with the 2003 GDS target.

"To date, for 70 000 young, unemployed people, the Department of Labour has made such a difference. These are people that have and are participating in learnership programmes," the Minister said.

The Minister also sent a strong warning to under-performing SETAs saying he would not hesitate taking action against them within the provision of the law.

"I issued written instructions to Defence Seta (DIDTETA) and the Local Government and Water SETA (LGWSETA) as they have several areas of under-performance. I have also issued written instructions to the six SETAs that have one or more areas needing attention. These SETAs include, the Public Service, Mining, Tourism, Forestry, Police, Wholesale and Retail."

Minister Mdladlana also took time to list some of the achievements of the National Skills Development Strategy since its inception in 1998.

"By December 2003, 4.4 million currently employed workers were enrolled in various structured learning programmes, thus exceeding our set target of 3 million. Of these workers 2.7 million have already completed their learning in this programme, which exceeds our target of 2 million," the Minister said.

"In the past financial year, the number of unemployed people we trained using Social Development Funding Window of the National Skills Fund alone increased by 45% to 144 056 trainees. About 79 per cent of these were placed in temporary jobs. For this training the provincial offices spent R171 million during 2003," he said

But he cautioned that despite the achievements more interventions were afoot to deal with the scourge of youth unemployment.

"In an effort to assist the new entrants into employment we have set aside R446 million to supplement SETA funding towards training 18,298 unemployed learners. This includes R106 million under NSF to cater for learnerships in the public sector. Similarly an amount of R50m will be allocated to the Local Government SETA from NSF to cater for the training of 2087 Community Development Workers."

The Minister added that the culture of social dialogue ushered in by the ANC-led government a decade ago was beginning to bear fruits.

He said the establishment of institutions such as NEDLAC bear testimony to the unprecedented industrial peace in the past few years between labour and business.

"Workdays lost due to industrial action dropped from 2.6 million in 1999 during 107 instances of industrial action to 919 780 in 62 cases of industrial action in 2003," he said.

"Similarly, our decision to have dispute resolution functions located within the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration, or CCMA, has begun to bear fruit. As a result of improvements in the CCMA's case management system, almost 116 000 cases were handled by the commission between April 2003 and February 2004, at an average of 553 cases per day," he added.

The Minister said the Department was beginning to undergo a major focus shift from policy development to delivery.

He said key to delivery would be accessibility of the Department's services to communities in the remotest of places.

"Before the end of this financial year we will introduce 20 Mobile Office Units whose main target is the most remote areas. For this an amount of R8.5m has been set aside for use in Limpopo, Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and Northern Cape," the Minister said.

The Minister singled out employment equity and the protection of vulnerable workers as some of the challenges within the Ministry.

"In the past year, six research papers were completed on workers co-operatives and employment creation. Such studies will help prepare the Department to handle the challenge of vulnerable workers, which remains our priority in the next five years," he said.