Productivity SA Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Mr Mothunye Mothiba Vote Of Thanks At The Productivity SA, Department Of Trade, Industry And Competition, And the National Skills Fund itukise Work Readiness Workshop On 6 July 2022
Programme Director, Executive Manager of Region 1, Ms Lalane Janse Van Rensburg
Ms. Shanaaz Ebrahim, Director: Spatial Industrial Development & Economic Trans-formation branch, Skills for the Economy Unit, the dtic
Mr. Paul Raidani, Spatial Industrial Development & Economic Transformation branch’, Skills for the Economy Unit, the dtic
Mr. William Moselakgomo, Career Counsellor, Public Employment Services,
Department of Employment and Labour
Representatives from Department of Trade, Industry and Competition, and the
National Skills Fund
Representatives of Organised Labour; Union Federations and Union Members
Representatives of Business and Members of the Business Community.
Representatives of Government and State-Owned Entities.
The Board, Executive Management and Productivity SA staff;
Members of the media;
All stakeholders
Ladies and gentlemen
Good Morning, Dumelang, Sanibonani
Programme Director, the task of delivering a Vote of thanks and closing remarks can be easy but taxing (as is the case with you in having to direct the proceedings, including, who says what and at what time) in that, one has to listen to all the speakers and comments on the chat box. I can assure you, I was denied the opportunity and moment to use the benefits of Virtual Event by sneeking out during the proceedings. The temptation therefore, is to say, Ke laka leo (loosely translated, I accept everything said and trust that everybody heard everything, and thank you for joining us today).
That said, Programme Director, Ladies and Gentlemen, it is my honour and priviledge to be given an opportunity to address you at this important event on the caledar of the Department of Trade, Industry, and Competition (the dtic), Productivity SA, and the National Skills Fund (NSF) Itukise Work Readiness Workshop.
Indeed, it will be remis of me not to reflect on the critical importance of the Itukise Intership Programme and to also thank the critical players – graduates for staying the course and completing the internship programme, the dtic for choosing and entrusting Productivity SA with the implementation of the Programme (launched in March 2014) and the NSF in funding the programmes, as well as the business community (Workplace Challenge Programme companies) who welcomed our approach to place the interns.
The ITUKISE Work Readiness Workshop today marks a journey that commenced in 2019 between the three parties (the dtic, NSF and Productivity SA), and the participation of the Department of Employment and Labour (DEL) completes our quest for providing Integrated Service by government (Joined-Up-Government in Action) to ensure that job seekers access the Public Employment Services System. This partnership between government and the private sector in trying to ameliorate the issue of joblessness amongst the youth is the right approach. This confirms another African proverb that that succinctly describes the value of partnerships – “If you want to go fast, go alone; but if you want to go far, go together.” We have realized that to holistically address the issue of youth unemployment, we have to work together to achieve that and in so doing we are fully aware that solutions will not happen overnight hence we chose to go far together.
I can confirm, as all the speakers have already done that, the Itukise programme has helped in facilitating work readiness to equip beneficiaries with job seeking techniques and behavioural conduct as well as creating a productivity awareness for current beneficiaries of the Programme. This brings to mind an old age that says, “if you give a hungry person fish today, tomorrow when they are hungry, they will come back to you, however if you to teach a person how to catch fish, tomorrow when they are hungry they will go fishing“ The adage which is not to be taken in its literal sense per-se basically spoke to what has been on the table today, which is primarily to equip beneficiaries with skills to navigate unemployment and acquire skills that will enable job creation.
Programme Director, Ladies and gentlemen, in equiping young people with the requisite capabilities competencies to access the labour market, the partners joined heads through the ITUKISE Internship Programme, as part of our contribution to fighting the scourge of unemployment amongst the youth. In so doing, we are enabling the youth to be able to catch their own fish (full and productivity employment and decent work) and be sustainable in the long term. To understand the challenges faced by today‘s youth, one has to take a look at the latest data released by Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) which shows that approximately 3.4 million (32.8%) out of 10,2 million young people aged 15-24 years were Not in Employment, Education or Training’ (so called NEET). The data also shows that the level of a person’s education has a direct impact on their ability to find work. The graduate’s unemployment rate (11.8%) is 23.5% points lower than the national official unemployment rate. A record high of 7.9-million people remain jobless in South Africa. I have deliberately touched on these unpleasant statistics to place emphasis on importance of today ‘s event.
Having said that, the four partners that I have mentioned, cannot move an inch if the youth do not take up these opportunities and fully benefit from them. Itukise in the Sesotho, Sepedi and Setswana language as you may be aware means “prepare yourself”. We have a saying at Productivity SA that “if you fail to prepare, prepare to fail” and I am glad that the collaborative approach amongst the youth or graduates and government entities has yielded commendable results.
You will be happy to note that the Itukise Project Target was for the placement of 1200 beneficiaries in the programme. This target has been achieved with 1219 placements in total and key highlights include the following:
– 719 of the total placements were done by the dtic with assistance from another Service Provider and Productivity SA signed a Memorandum of Understanding for the placement of 499 beneficiaries by September 2022.
Productivity SA placed a total of 505 beneficiaries against a target of 499 with the following split:
– 299 Females – 59% of all placements by Productivity SA were Youths/Female
– 204 Males- 41% of all placements by Productivity SA were Youths/Males
– Racial split of all placements by Productivity SA were 87% Black Youth, 1% White Youth, 1% Coloured Youth and 1% Indian
Productivity SA used some of its Workplace Challenge clients as hosts for the beneficiaries and it is worth noting that out of 505 interns placed by Productivity SA, 17 interns were absorbed by host employers after they had completed their internship programme. 15 interns were offered permanent employment by other companies whilst still on internship. One of the success stories that I cannot help but share with you is the one whereby Productivity SA placed a graduate intern who was a security guard before being placed under the Itukise Internship Programme. The intern who holds a Bachelor of Commerce in Accounting was placed with Ukuphila Kwezwe Accountants at KwaZulu Natal. The intern was absorbed by the host company after he completed his 12 months internship programme. These are the kind of stories that make this programme unique.
Programme Director, having acknowledged our achievements, let me equally caution that, with the youth unemployment rate as is, I believe that we still have to do more by scaling up the ITUKISE Internship Programme to include more young people.
As the global community and South Africans are just under two weeks away from observing Nelson Mandela International Day, I find that Itukise has lived up to the sprit of the Nelson Mandela International Day campaign which according to the Nelson Mandela Foundation remains rooted in the call Nelson Mandela made in 2009 to honour him by working in communities rather than by celebrating his birthday but also participating in sustainable interventions with lasting impact. We truly identify with the global theme for Nelson Mandela International Day 2022 which says “Do what you can, with what you have, wherever you are.”
Ladies and gentlemen before I get carried away, let me not forget that the primary purpose of my address is to thank you for all for proceedings related to today ‘s event. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the dtic, the NSF, and the DEL as well as and their representatives and last but of no lesser importance, I would like to thank my colleagues at Productivity SA with specific reference to Ms Lalane Janse Van Rensburg who is the Executive Manager for Productivity SA, Region 1 and her team for the fortitude and resilience they showed in managing the Itukise Programme. The numbers were not always so impressive and it is not by coincidence that we are where we are today but it is due to the hard work and dedication by the various teams.
Lastly, fellow participants in the workshop, the journey to making South Africa a winning nation is long, and thank you all for taking your valuable time and be a part of the journey to Truning the Economic Reconstruction and Recocery Plan into a reality.
thank you very much.
Ke a Leboga.