Minister Nzimande should prosecute corrupt SETA officials

30 April 2015

The Portfolio Committee on Higher Education and Training yesterday heard shocking evidence of deep-seated corruption, mismanagement and sheer incompetence in two of the 21 troubled Sector Education and Training Authorities (SETAs).

I will write to the Minister, Dr Blade Nzimande, to urge him to ensure that all those implicated in any of these crimes and misdemeanors are prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

The Culture, Arts, Tourism, Hospitality and Sport SETA (CATHSETA) and the Safety and Security SETA (SASSETA), were both called to Parliament because they had both been placed under administration by the Department as a result of successive adverse audit reports from the Auditor-General.

The Committee heard that no fewer than 6 additional SETAs had received adverse reports, bringing the total to 8, nearly half of the total number of SETAs.

The DA welcomes the fact that both CATHSSETA and SASSETA are now under administration. This has enabled the Minister legally to dissolve their Boards, and put the right people in place to clean up the mess. 

However those responsible for the state of affairs must be brought to book and the Minister needs to show the political will to do so.

The administrators tasked with improving the running of these SETAs found evidence of years of mismanagement on their arrival.

In both SETAs there had been cases of:

-  Tender irregularities;

-  Improper appointments;

-  Ballooned and divided boards with board members and their families benefiting from irregular expenditure;

-  Bloated bureaucracies; and

-  Complicit senior officials.

The Boards and CEOs of these two SETAs proved incapable of rectifying the situation in spite of these issues being brought to their attention repeatedly.

In the 2015/16 Budget, SETAs are allocated R11 billion which is then transferred to these bodies in order to facilitate the development of the appropriate skills for each “sector”.

This money is, in a large number of cases, being squandered. The DA believes that most SETAs are failing to fulfill their mandate and are acting as slush funds for those who manage to get access to them. We therefore advocate abolishing them and moving the incentive to train directly to business through a system of outcomes-based measurement and rewards.

Statement issued by Prof Belinda Bozzoli MP, DA Shadow Minister of Higher Education, April 30 2015