Mr Chairperson, government has lacked foresight since 1994 because, on the one hand, you have a large number of qualified people who are unemployed coupled with an utter failure to direct matriculants towards embarking on careers in which there is a shortage of manpower.
We should have recruited matriculants, taken them to municipalities, and shown them that we need town planners, administrators and people in municipal government, so that by now there should have been an oversupply of skilled manpower. It is a failure on the part of government not to have had the foresight to train people.
On the other hand, you have the Setas. Money is allocated for training and education, but there is no monitoring. So Seta has now become "cheater"! Those that are getting the money are cheating the government and taxpayers. And, of course, we should do things and get away from affirmative action and the equity policies. We should treat all South Africans as true South Africans and equal citizens and not do things according to race. It is the MF's considered opinion that had we started training our people since 1994, we would not have had a skills shortage in local government; we would have had an oversupply. I thank you.