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Country analysis > South Africa Last update: 2020-11-27  
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Growth and development summit agreement - 7 June 2003

 
SECTION 4: ADVANCING EQUITY, DEVELOPING SKILLS, CREATING ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITIES FOR ALL AND EXTENDING SERVICES

  1. Accelerating Equity

    Constituencies agree that:

    1. Patterns of development in South Africa resulted in black communities, particularly women, workers, youth, people with disabilities and rural people being largely excluded from the benefits of the mainstream of the economy through a general lack of opportunity, limited ownership opportunities, and discrimination in the workplace and through the consequences of apartheid geography and spatial development, which has left a legacy of inequality.


    2. The pace of promoting equity needs to be accelerated:


    3. Black economic empowerment comprises a set of integrated strategies including:

      1. Promoting broad-based black economic empowerment, including for women, workers, youth, people with disabilities and those living in rural areas
      2. Ensuring the broadest ownership of productive assets and resources
      3. Ensuring increasing levels of employment in the formal economy
      4. Increasing household incomes
      5. Ensuring that all people are literate and have developed skills
      6. Accelerating sustained broader economic growth and social development
      7. Promoting the extension of basic services to those who do not currently have them.


    4. In this context, the agreements reached by constituencies focus on:

      1. Broad-based black economic empowerment
      2. Employment equity
      3. Literacy, skills development - especially strengthening SETAs and promoting learnerships - and general education
      4. Access to basic services.


    5. Constituencies also agreed to review barriers to entry for entry-level jobs


    6. In terms of the Nedlac Act, Nedlac will publish regular reports on progress in advancing equity and reducing social and economic inequality.


  2. Black economic empowerment

    1. Noting that government has published its Broad-based Black Economic Empowerment Strategy and Bill for public comment, and further has committed R10 billion for Broad-based BEE over the next five years, constituencies undertake to work together:

      1. To advance equity in general and broad-based black economic empowerment, in particular by introducing, where appropriate, transformation and monitoring mechanisms such as charters, codes and other instruments.
      2. To strengthen black business development and ownership. In this process, constituencies will ensure that it is not at the expense of affordable service provision, decent work and job creation, located in the overall growth and development strategy to benefit all South Africans, managing possible trade-offs.
      3. To broaden the overall structure of ownership in the society, especially by creating new economic opportunities and activities and promoting access to good quality productive assets and opportunities for black entrepreneurs. Black entrepreneurs, communities and workers should increasingly own, control and manage enterprises.
      4. To secure access to finance and financial services.
      5. To develop skills and expertise and provide support mechanisms.
      6. To ensure the active participation of labour and the community constituency in the development and implementation of transformation mechanisms.


    2. Business specifically confirms its support for the advancement of equity and the promotion of BEE. Business's commitment will manifest itself in a proactive strategy of transformation to foster and encourage economic empowerment, transformation of ownership, management, skills development, equity, procurement and rural development through developing codes of practice and corporate social investment programmes as well as charters and other transformation and monitoring mechanisms at sector level. The Liquid Fuels and Mining Sector Charters are examples in this regard. Charters are being developed in the financial and Information and Communication Technology sectors.


    3. Labour will support the development of co-operatives as an important form of BEE, and will participate in the development of sector transformation and monitoring mechanisms.


    4. Community will mobilise communities to participate in BEE initiatives in general and credit co-operatives for collective savings and productive purposes in particular. Constituencies note the intention of the youth sector to invite contributions towards a voluntary youth solidarity fund, where all employed youth will be invited by youth organisations to contribute one day's gross salary to youth development programmes.


    5. Procurement is an important instrument for empowerment, black enterprise support, local content and job creation. Constituencies agree the following in this regard:

      1. Black enterprise support and local procurement, wherever possible, provide an important means of saving or creating jobs, promoting small enterprises and co-operatives, and securing growth and transformation of the South African economy.
      2. To ensure that opportunities are identified to significantly increase the level of black enterprise support and local procurement, in procurement and buying decisions, and to devise mechanisms in which these may be measured and publicised, and procedures amended where necessary.
      3. In pursuit of the objectives of 4.2.1.(c) above, constituencies agree to give black-owned enterprises a preferred supplier status, where possible, in all three levels of procurement (i.e. capital goods, consumables and services). To this end constituencies undertake to support the implementation of government's procurement policy by doing the following:

        1. Identifying current levels of procurement from black- owned enterprises and companies and agreeing on a strategy to set future targets.
        2. Committing to an increase of procurement from black-owned enterprises and companies reflecting the genuine value added by the black-owned enterprises provider.
        3. Encouraging existing suppliers to form partnerships with black-owned enterprises, where no black-owned enterprise or company tenders to supply goods or services.
        4. Helping develop black-owned enterprises' procurement capacity.


  3. Employment Equity

    1. Government, through the Department of Labour, undertakes to co-ordinate a joint campaign to enhance public awareness of the provisions of the Employment Equity Act by August 2003 prior to the submission of Equity Plans in October 2003. Special attention will be paid to advocacy and education on the "Code of Good Practice on the Employment of People with Disabilities".


    2. Business undertakes to contribute resources to the joint Employment Equity Campaign.


    3. Labour will mobilise and educate its members on employment equity and actively participate in the campaign.


  4. Promoting literacy

    1. Constituencies recognise that:

      1. A large number of adults were denied general education when they were young as a result of apartheid policies. Adults in this position are disadvantaged in their personal, social and working lives.
      2. Government is committed to progressively widening access to adult basic education and training to all adults in this position through the adult learning centres, the SETAs and other initiatives. Over and above the work of government, other constituencies are making a significant contribution to this area of work - employers through their own skills development programmes and social responsibility investments and labour and community through their own programmes.
      3. The work is currently underway and commit themselves to increasing the number of opportunities available to those who need these services.


    2. To this end government undertakes to continue to broaden access to literacy programmes through its Adult Learning Centres and other providers. Business, labour and community will augment their own initiatives in this area.


    3. The constituencies further commit themselves to working through SETAs for the achievement of the first objective of the National Skills Development Strategy, namely that by March 2005 at least 70 per cent of workers have at least basic literacy and numeracy according to Level One on the National Qualifications Framework (Grade 9 in the schooling system).


    4. All constituencies will work at local level to encourage and support adults to take advantage of these opportunities.


  5. Learnerships

    1. The majority of the unemployed are young. It is increasingly difficult for young people to find work - partly because there are not enough jobs, and partly because the young do not have the skills that are in demand in the labour market. Women, people with disabilities, and those living in rural areas face additional obstacles to finding employment and developing their skills. Currently too few young people are given opportunities to improve their skills in areas that will enhance their employability.


    2. To address these challenges, the constituencies agree to the following in relation to learnerships:

      1. The new skills development learnerships framework provides a useful vehicle for addressing these problems and simultaneously developing much needed skills in our country. Therefore they agree that there needs to be a dramatic increase in the recruitment of young, unemployed people into learnerships to enable them to acquire the skills they need to become economically independent.
      2. No workers should lose their jobs as a result of unemployed people getting learnership opportunities.
      3. Business and the government have agreed to register at least 72 000 unemployed learners in learnerships by May 2004. Achieving these targets is dependant on funding, which should come in the first place from the relevant SETA and National Skills Fund. In addition, as discussed below, some SETAs will need additional support from the Nedlac constituencies.
      4. Commitments on learnerships for unemployed learners are set out below:

        SETA Number of learners
        PSETA (Public Service) 10 000
        MERSETA (Manufacturing and Engineering) 8 831
        DIDTETA (Defence) 8 600
        THETA (Tourism and Hospitality) 8 000
        MQA (Mining) 7 340
        ETDP (Education and Training) 5 000
        SERVICES (Temporary employment agencies & domestic) 4 148
        TETA (Transport) 2 250
        CETA (Construction) 2 174
        HWSETA (Health and Welfare) 2 000
        W&RSETA (Wholesale and Retail) 2 000
        ISETT (Information Systems) 1 500
        CHIETA (Chemical) 1 466
        FOODBEV (Food and Beverage) 1 200
        FASSET (Financial Services) 1 200
        CTFL (Clothing and Textile) 1 080
        BANK (Banking) 1 050
        PAETA (Primary Agriculture) 1 000
        FIETA (Forestry Industries) 825
        ESETA (Energy) 782
        LGW (Local Government & Water) 670
        MAPPP (Media, Advertising, Printing, Publication & Packaging) 653
        SETASA (Secondary Agriculture) 489
        INSETA (Insurance) 350
        POSLEC (Police, Legal and Correctional Services) 300
        TOTAL 72 908


      5. Constituencies accept the National Skills Development Strategy equity targets for learnerships as a whole - 85% black, 54% women, and 4% people with disabilities. It is assumed that at least 95% of learners will be under the age of 35. Special efforts will be made to ensure that young people living in the rural areas have access to learnerships.
      6. The public investment initiatives, expanded public works programmes, co-operatives and small enterprises referred to in section 2 of this agreement will be targeted for developing potential learnerships, in relevant SETAs.
      7. Achievement of these targets will be the responsibility of the SETA concerned. Constituencies are represented on SETA Boards and will use this representation to support and monitor the achievement of these targets.
      8. After May 2004, the constituencies will ensure continued expansion of the aggregate number of learners, which should exceed the target of 80 000 for March 2005 set by the National Skills Development Strategy. The expansion in learnerships should be more strongly linked to longer-term skill needs, for instance through SETA involvement in sector strategies.
      9. Constituencies agree that learnerships should not displace workers, be used as a source of cheap labour, replace workers during industrial action, or lead to a lowering of employment standards. To address this type of abuse of the system:

        1. The Nedlac Labour Market Chamber will develop mechanisms to monitor the extent of the problem.
        2. Workers have the right to raise matters through their internal grievance procedures as well as through other vehicles provided for in law such as the CCMA, which has the power to order the reinstatement of a worker where such a worker has been found to be unfairly dismissed and make an award.
        3. Where an employer has been guilty of abusing the learnership system, the SETA shall be justified in refusing to register any further learnership agreements.


      10. There should be a workplace agreement on the policy and procedure to select and recruit learners into learnerships. This policy should endeavour to ensure that not more than 50% of the learners are recruited by word-of-mouth and that at least 50% should be selected from people forwarded by the Department of Labour's Labour Centres or Employment and Skills Development Agencies.


    3. Business undertakes to encourage enterprises to provide lists of those learnership opportunities to be recruited from the local Labour Centres or the Employment and Skills Development Agencies in order to enable unemployed young people without contacts with the current workforce to be given an opportunity to gain access to learnerships.


    4. Constituencies undertake to work with the Department of Labour on a joint marketing campaign on learnerships following the Growth and Development Summit. This will include:

      1. A jointly signed letter to be sent to all employers on the SARS database, together with a copy of the Employer's Guide to Learnerships.
      2. A media campaign will be launched and this will be designed to demonstrate endorsements for the learnership campaign from senior representatives of the constituencies.
      3. Promotional material will be circulated to members of constituencies.


    5. Constituencies agree to collaborate on the design and implementation of a strategy to support learners exiting from learnerships.


    6. SETAs should be encouraged to provide support for projects for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs).


  6. Strengthening the SETAs

    1. The constituencies recognise the crucial role that the SETAs can play in developing skills among the workforce and in particular the role of learnerships.


    2. To this end the constituencies agree that:

      1. They accept responsibility for the performance of SETAs and undertake to take active steps to address problems and accelerate delivery by these institutions.
      2. The Nedlac Executive Council should itself, on at least an annual basis:
        1. Review and discuss proposed performance indicators from SETAs
        2. Monitor and evaluate SETA performance against the indicators
        3. Support the acceleration of delivery against targets.
      3. The governance and accountability of SETAs will be strengthened through ensuring senior representation in SETAs, through developing a code of best practice for the SETAs and through regular reporting on the progress made by each SETA
      4. Training and capacity building for SETA representatives will be prioritised.


    3. The constituencies will consider the inclusion of community representatives on SETA Boards as part of the process of reconstituting SETAs after March 2005. The National Skills Authority will take this forward when advising the Minister on this matter.


    4. To improve the performance of SETAs, labour will:
      1. Ensure that national office bearers and/or national organisers of the relevant unions represent unions on SETA boards.
      2. With government's assistance, undertake to ensure that its representatives in SETA Boards are capacitated to effectively execute their functions. Such capacity building as is required, which will include learnerships, will include:
        1. Broad skills development processes and SETA specific processes
        2. Broad management accountability (administration, financial, corporate etc.)
      3. Embark on a programme to build the capacity of Skills Development Facilitators at workplaces where those facilitators are Labour nominees.


    5. Business undertakes:
      1. At a sector level, to strengthen its representation on SETA Boards by appointing appropriately senior and qualified persons and provide training for its Board members.
      2. To explore the creation of an appropriate mechanism in which Board members, representing business, of all sectors will be represented to provide oversight and guidance and track progress with meeting the targets committed to by business.


    6. Community will ensure that young people, especially in rural areas, are informed of learnership opportunities and register with labour centres and Employment and Skills Development Agencies.


  7. Education

    1. Education is a critical input for growth in employment and in the economy and for the enhancement of democracy.
    2. Constituencies note and agree that universal access to general education is essential and is a constitutional right.
    3. All schools should have access to basic services, especially electricity, water and telecommunications as soon as possible.
    4. Constituencies note the increase in education expenditures over the last few years especially in relation to learning material, infrastructure development and educator post provisioning for poor schools and that substantial inequalities still exist between rich and poor schools.
    5. Constituencies note the Department of Education's Review of Resourcing, Financing and Cost of Education in Public Schools, which proposes recommendations to alleviate the cost of education to poor households.
    6. Government will finalise recommendations to achieve the aim of affordable access for learners, particularly the poor, and engage with constituencies through the Nedlac Education Task Team.
    7. Government will enhance its school fee monitoring mechanisms to monitor overall school fees relative to household income on a regular basis, possibly by including questions in the national household survey.
    8. Constituencies will work in concert to ensure that households know their rights and responsibilities with respect to schooling.
    9. Labour, business and community will encourage their local structures to support orphans and very poor children in getting school uniforms and other school materials.
    10. Government will, as described in the Review of Resourcing, Financing and Cost of Education in Public Schools, extend its current school register of needs to provide more detailed information on infrastructure in all schools; integrate provincial asset management systems; and improve the tracking of gross and net backlogs. On that basis, it will update its capital investment plan, engage with the Nedlac constituencies thereon and encourage proposals to support infrastructure in schools.


  8. Access to basic services

    1. Government has already begun to expand access to basic education for all, and to provide poor households with a limited number of free basic services. These include timeframes and targets for access to:

      1. Water
      2. Electricity
      3. Sanitation
      4. Refuse collection

    2. The constituencies agree:

      1. To work through their local structures to assist eligible poor households to access these services.
      2. PIIs, EPWPs, co-operatives and small enterprises are important mechanisms for extending services to those who currently do not have them and to this end will encourage this.
      3. To review the housing programme with a view to ensuring that it does more to support employment creation and efficient urban development, including through densification in urban areas.


    3. While considerable progress has been made since 1994 in improving social security for children and the aged, underemployed and unemployed youth, especially in rural areas, continues to face challenges. The situation of the unemployed youth is partly addressed through other forms of social protection, such as expansion in public works programmes, learnerships, land reform, support for co-operatives, and other measures to support employment creation.
    4. Constituencies recognise that current social security measures form a crucial measure to fight poverty. To this end they agree to:

      1. Commit to using their structures and available resources to raising awareness of child grants, pensions and other special grants and addressing current obstacles for beneficiaries to take up these grants.
      2. Discuss the extension of the social protection framework, including for the long-term unemployed (including youth), pensioners, and those households with low incomes and people with disabilities.

    5. Government is in the process of finalising policy on a comprehensive framework for social protection, including social wage and social grant issues. It will take the framework back to Nedlac for engagement with the constituencies.
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