Kwazulu-natal government workers’ skills audit guidance implemented
THE provincial government said it was in the process of implementing the recommendations of a completed skills audit exercise for municipalities and all senior management within its administration.
This was revealed by Premier Nomusa Dube-ncube yesterday reflecting on 100 Days since being in office.
She said now that the skills audit had been completed, they were going to intensify consequence management following the approval of the Consequence Management Framework.
“Part of the interventions is to address the mismatch between the skills and actual positions that people occupy,” she said of the skills audit.
Dube-ncube said water was the number 1 service delivery challenge in KZN, and had been paid significant attention. Some of the inefficiencies were human error, including not responding timeously to burst pipes, leaking sewer, tree felling and grass cutting. “The issue of the performance of the state, especially monitoring and evaluation, requires tightening.”
She said a number of retired engineers who will assist with skills and experience in responding to these challenges had been identified.
“We will deploy these engineers to infrastructure and water hotspots.
“The problem is highly pronounced in Ugu, umzinyathi uthukela and umkhanyakude District. We need to focus on the implementation of the short-term and realisable intervention. Clearly, the pace in some of these areas is concerning.
Speaking about recovery following the April floods, she said care shelters had reduced from 61 to 58 from an initial 135. “We remain on schedule to get people out of mass care shelters by mid-december 2022. “All land parcels prepared for permanent development have increased from 8 to 13.”
She said the South Durban Basin which bore most of the impact during the floods was almost close to recovery and so was the retail sector which also suffered severe destruction.
While Dube-ncube highlighted six projects in the pipeline that would see about 4 000 jobs created, there had been some economic setbacks in the province. These were the fire at Denny’s Mushrooms and Tongaat Hulett’s voluntary business rescue.
She said they were unlocking the township SMMES in the automotive sector to provide services, ranging from fleet service and maintenance, panel beating and spray painting to automotive mechanical workshops.
“For some unemployed graduates we believe that the automotive sector is where jobs will be created to absorb thousands of unemployed youth but also people who lost their jobs as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. We want rural and township-based youth, trained as artisans and mechanics, to work in the automotive industry.”
On economic recovery and investment attraction, Dube-ncube said they supported the reopening of the Toyota manufacturing plant in Prospecton ravaged by the April floods. The plant started ramping up production and regained full production in September.
She said they also welcomed the R7.7 billion expansion project of the Sappi Saiccor Mill. She said Sappi’s operations in SA employ 3 929 people. Another investment was by the Metair Group’s Hesto Harnesses, which manufactures wiring harnesses for the automotive industry from their new factory next to their existing operation in Stanger. Hesto is the largest employer in the Stanger/ilembe region with 4 500 employees.