Eskom probes company over accreditation

THE spectre of “bogus” training institutions has seen Eskom confirm that it’s investigating a company that allegedly provided skills development to its staff while not registered.

If found guilty, those behind the suspected company could be jailed.

Internal documents from the Health and Wellness Sector Education and Training Authority (HWSETA) revealed that Nosa International, a company that provides safety training to more than 40 companies, many of which are multinationals, was deregistered in August after not being verified and endorsed by the authority since 2015.

This while President Cyril Ramaphosa signed the National Qualifications Framework Amendment Act last month, which stated, among other things, that institutions providing training that were not registered faced closure, a fine or imprisonment for a period not exceeding five years.

According to an email from HWSETA’s Richard Molefe, Nosa was accredited by the authority for skills programmes.

“But they (Nosa) haven’t been verified and endorsed since 2015. It is expected for an accredited skills development provider that when they train learners, they apply for verification by HWSETA and are endorsed.

“They (Nosa) are not accredited or registered for the first aid skills programme,” read Molefe’s email, dated August 27.

The Mercury’s sister newspaper, The Star, sent emailed questions more than two weeks ago to HWSETA and, after repeated assurances that it would answer, including yesterday, the authority had not responded.

Eskom’s media office confirmed that it was investigating “if Nosa was unaccredited at the time of offering services for skills training, and will assess any implication to the business”, without elaborating.

Justin Hobday, Nosa’s sales and marketing director, acknowledged that the company had historically been accredited with HWSETA as its primary authority, but had decided earlier this year to move to the Manufacturing, Engineering and Related Services Seta (Merseta).

Hobday provided a letter from Merseta confirming Nosa’s accreditation, but the confirmation letter was dated a month after the company’s HWSETA deregistration.

Hobday did not respond to questions on whether Nosa’s clients had been informed of this.

“The reason for this move (to Merseta) was that the HWSETA is primarily responsible for community health care while Merseta supports the manufacturing sector. This sector is better suited to our products,” Hobday said.

“We support the accreditation space as we have been accredited for many years… the accreditation of our first aid courses falls under this Merseta accreditation,” he added.

But an insider, who asked to remain anonymous, contended that Nosa had circumvented its non-compliance with HWSETA by seeking “blanket accreditation” with Merseta, without fully explaining to clients that this would affect the qualifications they paid for.

“What Nosa has done is akin to a chartered accountant running a health-training programme,” the source said.