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NEHAWU: NEHAWU on its state of readiness for the planned National Day of Action against DHET

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NEHAWU: NEHAWU on its state of readiness for the planned National Day of Action against DHET

NEHAWU: NEHAWU on its state of readiness for the planned National Day of Action against DHET
Photo by Reuters

20th November 2017

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The National Education Health and Allied Workers’ Union [NEHAWU] has been mobilising all its members in the Sector Education and Training Authority [SETA’s], Technical and Vocational Education and Training [TVET]/ and the Community Education and Training [CET] Colleges for purposes of joining the planned National Day of Action against the Department of Higher Education and Training to take place tomorrow Tuesday 21st November 2017.

The Day of Action will be in a form of a march which will be directed to the head office of DHET in Pretoria. A memorandum with our list of demands will be handed over to the Minister of Higher Education and Training.

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The national union has been conducting general members meetings in the above mentioned sectors with the purposes of mobilising workers for the Day of Action. At this stage, the union is satisfied with the level of mobilisation and confirms its readiness for the march to the head office of DHET.

We expect members to assemble as early as 9am in Marabastad [Old Putco depot]. The march will leave at 10:00 to Department of Higher Education and Training [Corner Francis Baard & Sophie De Bruyn Street]. A memorandum will be handed over between 11:30 and 12:30.

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The memorandum of demands will amongst others include the following issues:

· Maladministration and corruption in SETA’s
· The department’s failure to provide oversight that is necessary to improve the performance of the SETA’s which is characterised by poor management of funds and lack of accountability by senior management.
· SETA landscape and job security
· Finalisation of bargaining scope for the TVET sector
· Harmonisation of conditions of service for migrated TVET an CET college staff
· Review of delegation of authority to TVET college principals
· Review of current funding model
· Update on the establishment of South African Institute for Vocational and Continuing Education and Training [SAIVECET]
· The role of college councils in the current dispensation
· Funding for college staff that did not migrate but supporting ministerial approved programmes
· Insourcing security, cleaning and hostel services in TVET colleges
· Permanent absorption for CET lecturing staff and recapitalisation for CET colleges
· Releasing of audit reports findings conducted in TVET colleges
· Union bashing in SETA’s, TVET, and CET colleges
· Non-issuing of certificate on time for TVET College students

The Day of Action is as a result of many unresolved issues that the department has been intransigent in dealing with and has resulted in the creation of unfavourable working conditions for both our members and workers. Our members have been patient for far too long and have decided that, what we cannot win in the boardroom we shall win in the streets. At the centre of these issues is the following:

· Delegation of Authority: According to the delegation of authority in terms of section 38 of the public service act, 1994, the Minister has delegated partly the powers to the college Principals to can selectively administer the recruitment and disciplinary of the college junior staff while the senior management are accounted at the DHET protocols, we therefore demand the immediate reversal of the delegation of authority since we are all the public servant.

· Consultancy: The South African Institute of Chartered Accountants [SAICA] and the minister signed a memorandum of agreement to supplement the operation of the TVET colleges by bringing the SAICA HR and CFO expert as a consultation, but instead the officials placed at out colleges are destabilizing the whole management and operational process. As NEHAWU, we feel that the colleges have the minimum expertise to can run their colleges both financial and otherwise. We therefore call upon the Minister to recall the consultation process and remove them with immediate effect.

· Insourcing: The Labour Relations Act 2002 as amended, entity that may be taken over as a going concern for purposes of section 197 of the LRA. Vast majority of the TVET Colleges has outsourced garden and cleaning services, security enforcement and legal representation. We therefore call upon the minister to take over all the outsourced services by the colleges to be insourced to the department.

· Procurement: According to treasury policy, the introduction of procurement was to ensure that proper and successful government procurement rests upon certain core principles of behaviour - the Five Pillars of Procurement are: Value for Money, Open and Effective Competition, Ethics, Fair Dealing Accountability and Reporting Equity. But with the TVET colleges, this become an open way to misuse the state fund by giving tenders to their friends and families and they are alarming in all the audits. To safeguard the above: our view is that the department should take over this service and centralize it.

· Overhaul of SETA boards and suspension of DHET Director-General Gwebinkundla Qonde: The current SETA boards have been instrumental in the decline in governance standards in the SETAs. Despite various quarters of society including the trade unions and other social partners bringing this constant decline to the attention of the Department and its Director-General, DHET did not take any action and even protected board members in many instances  like in Services SETA, CETA, CHIETA, CATTHSETA, Foodbev SETA, LGSETA, MQA, etc.

· Recruitment of CET College students: CET Colleges are currently recruiting students by word of mouth. There is a potential of attracting a larger number of students however the public is not aware of services rendered by CET Colleges. CET Colleges should be resourced with sufficient funds in order to enable them to recruit students from the 2018 intake onwards.

The status quo cannot continues as is and thus we will give the Minister fourteen days to positively respond to our demands as contained in the memorandum to be delivered tomorrow. Failure to respond positively to our demands will leave us with no option but to render the system both unworkable and ungovernable.

We encourage our members to come out in numbers in support of this day of action to highlight the issues in these sectors. We hope employers will not intimidate nor stop workers from joining the Day of Action.

 

Issued by NEHAWU

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