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The admission by twelve SETAs during the Labour portfolio committee sittings over September that they have not trained a single retrenched worker is a serious indictment of government's much touted economic rescue plan. Government has missed the boat - thousands of workers face unemployment and yet the ANC government is doing what it does best: sitting with their arms folded and waiting for another round of intervention while urgent needs are not addressed. Here are the details of each of the SETAs that have not trained any workers, and how much money has been set aside for training:
• CETA - R15 million
• LGSETA - No money set aside
• MAPPP-SETA - R5 million
• FASSETT - Funds already committed via other projects
• CHIETA - R10 million ringfenced -awaiting announcement by Minister to implement
• ETDP - R30 million plus NSF money
• FIETA - 50% of discretionary funds
• HWSETA - R16 million
• INSETA - R30 million for pilot, to increase by R6 million each month
• SASSETA - no specifics
• PSETA - R5 million
• TETA - R12 million
Clearly, the ANC government's entire rescue plan has been unduly delayed and misconceived from the very start. The reasons are that:
• The training by the SETAs has been made available too late - most of the individuals who face retrenchment have already been fired at the beginning of the year. If government acted sooner, this would have been averted and the program might have been successful.
• Some of the SETAs have admitted that they have not formulated any training program- so even if there are businesses that would want to make use of the offer, they would not be able to.
• Many of the industries represented by the SETAs are by their very nature impervious to retrenchment. This is particularly so in the case of the local government SETA. And this in turn undermines the notion that these very ineffective training programs ought to be our front line defence against unemployment.
South Africa is facing a serious challenge in overcoming our high levels of unemployment - the fact that we face an economic downturn only places greater urgency on the matter. It is therefore completely unacceptable that government is failing to respond while promising to do so. This is the worst of both worlds for workers. Yet again the poor and destitute suffer because the ANC government has overextended itself by not making good on its promises. More than R 120 million has been set aside for the training, and yet no single person has been trained yet - this is a serious indictment of the SETAs as well as the governments' economic rescue package - it has not added any value and has cost millions of taxpayer rands. The DA believes that the SETAs need to be shut down and the DA will continue to ask parliamentary questions on these matters in order to hold the ANC government to account for their promises made.