Programme Director. Welcome to our Beautiful Province!

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1 Speech by Premier Phumulo Masualle at the Safety and Security Sector Education and Training Authority (SASSETA), Dan s Lodge, Umtata, 30 September 2014, Mr. Bhekinkosi Mvovo Chairperson SASSETA Board, Mr. Abbey Witbooi SASSETA Acting CEO, Mr. Makubetse Sekhonyane SASSETA Chief Financial Officer, Mr. Phehello Tsotetsi Delegates to the SASSETA AGM Distinguished Guests Ladies and Gentlemen Welcome to our Beautiful Province! I was happy to accept this invitation because your letter dangled the proverbial carrot. It is said that SASSETA is in the process of increasing its provincial footprint by opening offices in the Eastern Cape. To us, this means Job Creation. It also did not end there, it said SASSETA is running a number of projects across the province and these include work integrated learning, bursaries, traffic management and general security officer programmes. 1

2 To us, this means that SASSETA s eyes and ears are on the ground and understand the areas of need facing young people in the area of skills development in a province that is predominantly rural with an expanding economic base. I therefore hope that the Career Guidance promise you made in the letter enticing me to come here will soon be realized as SASSETA reaches out to the length and breadth of our province. Last week, the Minister of Police released the latest crime statistics. It was not a rosy picture. Our society continues to experience higher levels of violence in society, yet we also pride ourselves on the traditions of resolving conflict through Negotiations and Dialogue. It was disconcerting to note that if you looked into the 5 and 10 year trends over this period, the picture remains gloomy. Contact crime remains a permanent feature in this category. This is the category that deals with Murder, attempted murder, sexual offences, assault with intention to inflict grievous bodily harm, common assault and robbery with aggravating circumstances. Your sector SASSETA has to be alive to these areas that require focus as a Nation. It has to provide training for efficient law enforcement agents that are capable, compassionate, ready and willing to make our society a better place to live a safe place to call home for all our people. Women, young people and children continue to suffer at the hands of criminals. Rural safety programmes need to take into cognizance the need to train young people to participate in community police forums. In my view, this will assist in providing the community with trained personnel that can provide immediate assistance and relief prior to the arrival of the police. Young unemployed community members have to be trained to deal with gender based violence, including offering counselling services to community members and 2

3 assist in the process of securing the crime scene as well as providing support to victims of these contact crimes. They are located within the community and need to have the requisite skills to assist. SASSETA as a sector can look at programmes that assist young unemployed people to be of service to our Nation. Since September 12, 2014, our Nation has been in grief. On that day we learnt that 67 of our nationals had perished in a terrible tragedy in Nigeria. The figure of the fatalities went up to 84 and only 18 post mortems thus far have been carried out by agencies certified to do this work in Nigeria. Our South African National Defence force members as well as other security agencies carried out an efficient operation in air evacuating those who were injured to Steve Biko Academic Hospital with such care, compassion and courage. They proved to the nation what happens when you deploy capable men and women to provide consular assistance to citizens in distress. SASSETA as a feeder sector should be continue to look at learnerships that can be undertaken to allow those in the sector to carry out such operations especially those in the para legal field. If we work with them in a strong spirit of partnership, we may bring to life the the Freedom Charter adopted in 1955 in Kliptown when we said that The Doors of Learning and Culture Shall Be Opened. We will further add impetus to the very Freedom charter sub -clause that declared that the aim of education shall be to teach the youth to love their people and their culture, to honour human brotherhood, liberty and peace You may recall that this Charter was adopted as a response to many laws including the Bantu Education Act, no.47 of 1953 which wreaked havoc on the education of black people. It deprived and disadvantaged millions for decades. In my State of the province Address, I spoke of Skills Development as a key instrument to enable the increased participation of the youth in meaningful economic activity. I indicated that Skills training programmes in strategic sectors of the economy will be supported. I spoke of a particular focus that will be placed on the following: 3

4 The management of matchmaking and placement Internships, Skills Retention and Attraction Alignment of industry needs with SETAs and Gearing up of institutions of learning for skills supply During that SOPA Address in June, I tasked the Provincial Human Resource Development Council to develop within 6 months, a comprehensive plan to address all critical skills required in the Provincial economy. I required that within 6 months they need to provide me with a Plan that will tell us, how many young people are unemployed, how many of those are qualified and in what sectors, how do we match their existing skills with the needs of the industry, which FET s are providing what training and who is ready at the end of the cycle to receive the learners for apprenticeships, learnerships and training opportunities? The skills needs in the safety and security sector workforce continues to develop and change. As a rural province, we also need to train people within the sector to deal with security risks that come as a result of climatic conditions. Veld fires and other seasonal national disasters require efficient firefighters and environmentalists to act urgently to safeguard our land and its agricultural produce. Programme director As you know, we have also positioned ourselves as a leading energy hub within the country, with a huge focus on wind energy and have wind farms that are currently in operation. These new areas of growth will need to be secured. We will work with you in partnerships to realize these objectives. SASSETA s commitment to expand its footprint within our province is commendable. Our challenges are immense, urgent and pressing. Continuing poor work readiness of many young people leaving formal secondary and tertiary education entering the labour market for the first time remains a challenge. 4

5 Continuing skills shortages in the technical professions that are fundamental to the development and growth of our economy constrain growth Many sectors of the economy continue to pay minimal attention to equipping their workforce to adapt to change as the economy becomes more knowledge based. We also have Good Stories to tell too. Within Operation Phakisa, we have identified opportunities for a Maritime High School, learners have been trained for the past three years and we will continue to call upon SASSETA to develop programmes that will assist those learners in fields like Warship Operations, Vessel safety practices, Harbour watch keeping and Command and control services. Our Province has both the Port Elizabeth and East London harbours as ports of entry for the movement of people and goods whilst we also share coastal space with Mossel Bay. SASSETA has to work in partnership with us with a greater sense of urgency to collaborate. Perlemoen poaching and rhino poaching including dealing in illegal species continue to hound us especially in the rural areas. Traffickers are becoming smart by the day as they use routes that are often outside of immediate police focus. This is where locally trained community intelligence officers can assist the police as they are rooted amongst the people to provide first hand intelligence to police. Working with SASSETA, we can embark on programmes that ensure that rural safety and road safety become areas of interest for the young unemployed too. The scourge of violent service delivery protests can be stemmed too, if SASSETA provided trained law enforcement agencies within metro policing to ensure that Government s resources and People s heritage is protected from acts of hooliganism and vandalism. Short courses too in conflict resolution, mediation and post conflict reconstruction can also assist our social cohesion programmes within communities. Public Private partnerships for Artisan development is another area of engagement we need to work on. 5

6 Our FET Colleges can benefit from joint partnerships to allow us to produce the right kind of artisans for refurbishing and maintenance work carried out across all 7 sub chambers within the security sector such as in corrections, defence; justice, policing, state security, legal and private security chambers. We cannot achieve this if there is no better alignment in our interventions to existing Human Resource Development challenges. The skills SASSETA provide must be responsive to unique situations of provinces, informed by the provincial development plans. In an increasing, complex and hyper connected world, collaboration to address vexing social challenges is crucial. No individual stakeholder working alone can address successfully the mammoth challenges of the developmental needs of our provinces. We therefore need to strengthen collaboration with your sector and partner I wish your Annual General Meeting all the best as we continue to move not only our Province forward, but our Nation as well. I thank you! 6