Business Day
*Patel to set skills targets in contracts* *Sam Mkokeli, Business Day, Johannesburg, 28 March 2012*THE government will set skills development targets for companies that win contracts in its huge infrastructure development programme, says Economic Development Minister Ebrahim Patel.
This is the second indication that the government is trying to leverage state contracts to meet its development agenda. Last month Mr Patel said companies wishing to win contracts in the R3,2-trillion infrastructure development programme would need to sign an "integrity pact" committing them to ethical behaviour, including noncollusion with competitors and competitive pricing.
The government had realised the billions of rand spent in building infrastructure for the 2010 Soccer World Cup, and other projects such as the Gautrain, had not left a legacy of any meaningful new skills, he said.
Speaking at an economic development workshop organised by the Gauteng legislature yesterday, Mr Patel said targets would be set for companies to create specific and specialised skills, like those of artisans.
This was in addition to the skills accord signed by business, labour and government.
The accord has a target of training 30000 new artisans in its first year. Of those, 31% would get training in government, 13% in state-owned enterprises and 56% in the private sector.
It was signed last year as part of the New Growth Path, created by Mr Patel's department and adopted as government strategy in December 2010.
"We learnt from the Gautrain and the 2010 World Cup infrastructure development --- which was executed efficiently but left no significant contribution to the skills pool," he said.
Mr Patel said with the new infrastructure spend, companies would be given "specifications" which would be "requirements" for creating a set number of technically skilled professionals.
Economist Chris Hart said business already had obligations to pay a skills levy, which went towards funding sector education and training authorities (Setas). The Setas have been criticised for failing to provide the skills required for the economy.
"The intention is quite good, but this will come on top of layers of failure in the education system," he said.
Mr Patel said improving the country's infrastructure was the next step in the implementation of the New Growth Path policy. The policy has an ambitious target of creating 5-million new jobs by 2020 --- an average of 500000 jobs a year.
Last year --- the first calendar year since the adoption of the economic policy blueprint --- 365000 jobs were created by SA's economy.
Mr Patel said these achievements were not enough, but they were regarded by the Cabinet as comforting "early wins" in the implementation of a new policy.
An average of 1000 jobs a day was a "good figure", considering the uncertainties in the global economy.
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