Education minister Buti Manamela acts against three embattled Setas
They were gazetted on Tuesday after years of corruption and mismanagement, as well as serious rot reflected in the auditor-general's reports uncovering various irregularities.
This intervention follows serious and entrenched governance failures in these entities, including procurement irregularities, lapses in oversight and board instability, which threatened their ability to deliver on their mandate to advance skills development.
'This decision marks the first step in stabilising eta governance. We cannot allow governance failures to erode the public's confidence in our skills development system.
'These administrators have a clear mandate to restore integrity, enforce consequence management where necessary and ensure that learners and workers are not prejudiced by institutional weaknesses. Our goal is to reposition Setas so they can contribute effectively to the fight against unemployment, poverty and inequality,' said Manamela.
Meant to address skills shortages and improve the overall quality of education and training in South Africa, the entities have been riddled with corruption and maladministration, with poor accountability leading to millions spent with little to show for it.
The Local Government Seta (LGSeta), the Construction Education and Training Authority (Ceta) and the Services Seta (SSeta) faced the chopping block, with their operations taken over by administrators appointed by the minister.
Zukile Christopher Mvalo was named the LGSeta administrator, with Dithabe Oupa Nkoane as the Ceta head and Lehlogonolo Alfred Masoga taking over at the SSeta. Their tenures as administrators will last a year. They are to oversee the running of their respective Setas, performing functions such as ensuring sufficient funding for the processes and activities.
The minister has also charged them with submitting monthly progress reports to the director-general. Key to their task is facilitating the appointment of new accounting authorities at the three entities.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Mail & Guardian
an hour ago
- Mail & Guardian
Inflation hits 10-month high at 3.5% in July
The key drivers of price growth in July were food and non-alcoholic beverages (up 5.7% and contributing 1.0 percentage points). Photo: Supplied South Africa's annual consumer inflation accelerated to 3.5% in July from 3.0% the previous month, driven by food and non-alcoholic beverages, This was the second consecutive year-on-year increase and the highest rate in 10 months. On a month-on-month basis, consumer prices rose by 0.9% in July, after a 0.3% increase in June. The key drivers of price growth in July were food and non-alcoholic beverages (up 5.7% and contributing 1.0 percentage points) and housing and utilities (up 4.3% and contributing 1.0 percentage points), the statistics agency said. During the period, the annual inflation rate for goods was 3.2%, up from 2.3% in June, and services was 3.6%, down from 3.7% in the previous month. South Africa's Last month, 'It is important to sustain this progress and to minimise uncertainty about the longer-term objectives of monetary policy,' Kganyago said in the July MPC meeting. 'Therefore, the [monetary policy committee] now prefers inflation to settle at 3%. In line with this, we have decided to aim for the bottom of our inflation target range, of 3 to 6%.' 'We welcome the recent moderation in inflation expectations and would like to see expectations fall further. This would expand policy space and make our framework more robust to shocks. We will use forecasts with a 3% inflation anchor at future meetings.'
TimesLIVE
an hour ago
- TimesLIVE
DA slams education minister Buti Manamela over Seta appointments
The DA has rejected higher education minister Buti Manamela's sector education and training authority (Seta) takeover, claiming he has appointed corruption-tainted individuals. The minister announced Oupa Nkoane, Lehlohonolo Masoga and Zukile Mvalo as the construction, services and local government Seta administrators, respectively. Nkoane is a former municipal manager at the ANC-governed Emfuleni local municipality in Gauteng. The DA said he is implicated in a forensic report that details the mismanagement of R872m in the municipality. Masoga, a former ANC Limpopo MEC and deputy speaker, was allegedly implicated in a forensic report for backdating a communications contract worth R4.4m as CEO of the Musina-Makhado special economic zone. This was seen to justify unjustified payments made to communications company Mahuma Group. Mvalo is deputy director-general responsible for skills development in the department of higher education since 2017. 'All 21 Setas have been reporting directly to him for the past eight years. He has failed at stabilising Setas and has no prospect of fixing anything,' the DA said.
The Citizen
2 hours ago
- The Citizen
Manamela under fire for another round of ‘unfit' appointments to Seta boards
ANC higher education ministers have been accused of using Setas to create jobs for their comrades. The new minister of higher education and training, Buti Manamela, is under fire for yet another round of controversial appointments to the Sector Education and Training Authority (Seta) boards. This comes after Manamela announced several officials with corruption allegations on their backs as administrators for three Seta's that have been struggling with governance failures and the lack of financial oversight. These administrators will oversee the Services Seta, Construction Seta (Ceta), and Local Government Seta (LGSETA). Manamela said these administrators have a clear mandate to restore integrity, enforce consequence management and ensure that students and workers are not prejudiced. DA rejects Seta appointments However, DA portfolio committee member for higher education, Karabo Khakhau, said these appointments do not inspire confidence. 'These appointees are unfit – implicated in corruption, mismanagement, fraud in previous government jobs – or have proved themselves useless in the Seta space already,' said Khakhau. She said the DA has written a letter to Manamela requesting that he should withdraw these appointments. 'Will Minister Manamela fail his first test of ANC cadre deployment, or will he go down the same path as Nobuhle Nkabane? The facts against Manamela speak for themselves,' she said. Khakhau said one of the candidates, Oupa Nkoane, is a former municipal manager at the ANC-governed Emfuleni Local Municipality in Gauteng and is implicated in a forensic report that details the mismanagement of R872 million. Another is a former ANC Limpopo MEC and deputy speaker, Lehlohonolo Masoga, who was implicated in a forensic report by forensic services company Morar for backdating a communications contract worth R4.4 million as the CEO of the Musina-Makhado Special Economic Zone. Khakhau said this was seen to justify unjustified payments made to the communications company, Mahuma Group. Another administrator is the current Deputy Director General responsible for skills development in the Department of Higher Education, Zukile Mvalo. The DA said the problem with this appointment is that all Setas have been reporting to him for the last eight years. 'He has failed at stabilising Setas for the past eight years, and has no prospect of fixing anything suddenly now,' said Khakhau. The DA called for independent candidates to be appointed to Seta boards. 'Minister Manamela announced these appointments, saying they are to address serious and entrenched governance failures in these entities, including procurement irregularities, lapses in oversight, and board instability. How on earth can this be addressed by corruption, fraud, mismanagement implicated ANC cadres? 'We demand that Manamela stop this, and appoint independent non-political persons free of corruption implications to deliver an effective turnaround of the system,' she said. Background Manamela was appointed minister of higher education in July after Nobuhle Nkabane resigned from her position. Nkabane got into trouble with the Portfolio Committee on Higher Education and Training for lying to parliament about Seta board appointments. She was also accused of appointing ANC cadres to these boards. The entire process was reversed after numerous complaints from opposition parties. ALSO READ: SETA not resolving skills shortage, just eating our tax money Are Seta's effective? Meanwhile, a study has found that while the Setas are created to solve the country's skills shortage problem and contribute to the employability of South Africans, they instead eat R20 billion per year in tax money, and reaching only 0.6% of the workforce. The study found that the Setas have proven to be inefficient and ineffective, according to research by the Bureau for Economic Research (BER). The BER proposes to resolve the skills problem by restructuring and moving towards a more effective approach that prioritises skills for growth. NOW READ: UCT racialised marking claims – Parliament demands urgent probe
