UIF tackles joblessness and skills shortage through SRIs

Poverty alleviation, training, skills development and initiatives supporting job creation are high on fund’s agenda Social impact of investments

Centre opened to the public in September 2016. The SRI investments have helped to transform the social circumstances of the recipient individuals and communities.

The fund invested R446-million to help broaden access to tertiary education to more than 34 000 students, and through South Point, a provider of student housing, the fund financed 10 000 accommodation units in Johannesburg, Port Elizabeth, Pretoria, Cape Town and Durban.

Investments in renewable energy augmented the country’s energy capacity and provided a total output of 192MW of electricity, comprising 117MW of solar energy and 27MW of windgenerated electricity. One success story is the De Aar solar plant completed in April 2016.

The facility produces 90MW of electricity that generates electricity for 15 000 houses.

The fund’s investments in skills development include signing funding agreements with 23 technical vocational education and training colleges to train 3 258 students in building and civil construction at a cost of R1.8-million for each college.

Another training project imparted water-heater installation skills, thereby improving job prospects, and created hundreds of new solar installers, helping to alleviate the shortage of qualified installers in the solar energy sector.

Funded by the UIF and the Energy and Water Services Sector Education and Training Authority, the training initiative supported the Department of Energy’s objective to install more than a million solar powered geysers nationally.

“Our training schemes are crucial in giving young graduates the relevant skills to enter the job market as competent professionals, while addressing critical skill shortages in certain sectors,” says Maruping.

He adds it is important to quickly re-skill people who have lost work and re-introduce them into the workforce as soon as possible.

“After the training is complete, our exit strategy is clear. We facilitate internships and onthe-job training opportunities to give trainees practical experience. Having work experience yields better prospects for permanent employment as most trainees end up securing jobs. the UIF and Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) jointly issued a bond and launched a funding programme to assist start-up and unlisted companies to create and preserve jobs.

A bond is a form of long-term loan in which the issuing company promises to pay back the principal amount at a specific date. The IDC is the government agency that offers financial aid, focusing on economic growth and industrial development of start-ups.

The UIF provided R4-billion in funding and the IDC managed the five-year programme, resulting in 33 722 new jobs and 19 418 saved vocations.

Of the 54 000 jobs created, more than 50% were in the automotive and transport equipment, basic metals and mining, chemical products, pharmaceuticals, and clothing and textiles industries — all key contributors to South Africa’s economy. The fund will act on various issues — ranging from the proposed Unemployment Insurance Amendment Bill — to various poverty-alleviation schemes, all aimed at fulfilling its fundamental objective of facilitating skillsdevelopment, job creation, job preservation, and issuing social insurance payouts.

In the 2017/18 financial year, it plans to spend a total of R600million on training schemes, including R30-million to train workers in business skills and entrepreneurship, in partnership with the Department of Public Works.

In the maritime sector, the fund seeks to address the dearth of skilled black professionals and has signed an accord with the South African Maritime Safety Authority and the Moses Kotane Institute, a training academy in KwaZulu-Natal, to train more than 200 unemployed beneficiaries at a cost of R14million.

The Unemployment Insurance Amendment Bill is before the National Council Of Provinces. Its main objectives are to broaden the scope of maternity benefits; extend the period during which unemployment benefits are paid from eight to 12 months; and widen benefits to people in learnership training and civil servants across all three levels of government.

The fund intends to use its reserves to fulfil the aims of the amendment bill and fund socially responsible initiatives. Once the National Council of Provinces ratifies the bill, the president will sign and pass it into law.