The Sector Education and Training Authorities (Setas) are important institutions in the post-school landscape of South Africa and should be used more effectively to improve skills development in the country, Higher Education and Training Minister Dr Blade Nzimande said on Friday.

Nzimande was speaking to stakeholders at the Services Seta road show in Cape Town, where he clarified some of the changes to be made in how all the Setas operate, with the emphasis being on improving leadership and governance of these entities.

The road show comes in the wake of the Services Seta withdrawing litigation against the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) earlier in July. The litigation had opposed the imposition of a new standard constitution on the Services Seta.

Nzimande said that up to now, there has been an unacceptable waste of money in many Setas, a number of whom have been funding activities which should not be funded through the skills development levy. “Partly due to a lack of proper accountability, many Setas have to a large extent drifted away from their core mandate,” he said.

To improve accountability and governance, the key changes in the new constitution to be applied across all Setas are the introduction of an independent chairperson; limiting the number of board meetings and board members; requiring the participation of the DHET Minister in board member approval; including two Ministerial appointees on each Seta board; standard remuneration rate for board and committee members; holding board members accountable for executing their duties as required; and requiring the Cabinet to approve appointment of Seta CEOs, which would be similar to other public entities.

Nzimande said a lack of governance has been one of the major contributing factors to poor performance of the Setas and the problems have impacted on the delivery of training.

“I’m a communist, I don’t hide that, but I have learnt some good capitalist practices of late, like keen reporting on good corporate governance. And I understand it – we are violating many of those rules,” he said.

The Minister said that while some companies were doing relatively well, spending as much as 6% of their payroll on training, in general the DHET is not happy about the levels of spending on training.

“By both private companies and State-owned enterprises in particular, we would like to see that being increased.”

When asked whether there is likely to be an increase in the skills development levy from the current level of 1%, Nzimande said that it was a debate that should go to the National Economic Development and Labour Council (Nedlac) because labour felt that 1% was too little.

“There is no decision as of now to increase the levy. But labour has actually raised the issue, that it needs to be discussed and debated and ideally agreed to by the partners at Nedlac so that we are then able to increase the resources that are available, so that we are able to spend this money to address the many challenges that we have.”