South Africa is experiencing a serious lack of skills. Babies are dying in our hospitals, our trains are colliding, emerging farmers are left to struggle, thousands of RDP houses must be rebuilt and potholes mark our streets. Skills shortages contribute to qualified audit reports and the fact that many municipal and provincial governments are unable to spend their infrastructure grants.
Construction at the Medupi and Kusile Power Stations has recently come to a standstill due to serious labour unrest - unrest that was fueled by the presence of artisans from the Philippines. Why? It is because South Africa lacks suitably skilled welders. Hundreds of labourers who were part of the initial construction phases of these power stations were trained but left the site without any formal recognition for their training. This is all because of the cumbersome skills regime that this government has introduced.
Never before in the history of South Africa has so much money been made available for skills development, yet the number of artisans qualifying has seen a sharp decline since the 1980s. Hon Koornhof referred to 33 000 in the 1970s. In 1985 alone 13 000 artisans qualified and we were serving a much smaller economy. Now we hear the Minister speak of the target of 10 000 - 26 years after that. By 2005 that number had fallen to just 1 400 and with at least half of our artisans being 50 years or older, it is increasingly urgent to get new blood into the system.
The DA has consistently called for the scrapping of the failed Sector Education and Training Authorities. In a significant development, Minister Nzimande has admitted that this government skills development system has failed the nation and that it is impacting negatively on economic growth. Yet the past year has seen him renewing the licences of almost all the Setas for a further five years.
Under pressure to do something, Minister Nzimande then turned to the composition of the Seta boards, grabbing the power to appoint chairpersons and board members. However, the boardrooms are not where the real problems are to be found, Minister. Again, government got it so wrong. The Labour Court recently found that the Minister had contravened his own laws. His efforts will again have the opposite effect of what he is trying to achieve.
This Minister is adamant that government knows what is best. He seems to be highly concerned with the specks in the eyes of private training providers while ignoring the logs in the eyes of his own Department of Higher Education, the public FET colleges and the entities that report to him. The fact is that this government has built a very complicated training system, one that is completely inappropriate for the needs of our country. It seems as if we will have to wait a long time for government to admit to this.
The Minister also seems to be oblivious to the fact that this department has had to operate for half its existence without a properly appointed director-general in office. For every five staff members on the payroll, two vacancies are waiting to be filled.
It is no wonder, then, that the Minister and his department have been unable to answer a single one of the 50 written questions submitted to him by various Members of Parliament this year. [Interjections.] No wonder that the Portfolio Committee on Higher Education and Training saw fit to send senior officials home with their tails between their legs when the members were not happy with their initial presentation on the department's strategic plans.
HON MEMBERS: Hear, hear!