THE DEFINITIVE TRUCKING SITE

April 2008

Amidst diesel price hikes, soaring interest rates and nation-wide power cuts looms the perennial nemesis of confident growth in the truck transport industry, the skills shortage. As the government battles to come to terms with both historical and current failures in education policy, transport operations find themselves beset by a doubleedged sword, one blade shining with the promise of more business as South Africa’s road transport industry grows, the other the blunt and stunted wedge of human resource deficiency, writes Paul Collings. 

Our local truck transport industry is not alone in its struggle to acquire the skills it needs to meet rising demand for efficient road haulage. In a report compiled by Professor Lawrence Schlemmer for the Centre for Development and Enterprise (CDE), released in June 2007, senior company officials from 40 leading SA companies confirmed that the shortage of skills is “one of the most costly and troublesome issues affecting the management of South African businesses.” 

According to CDE director, Ann Bernstein, “in order to confront the full reality of our skills crisis we have to face the fact that South African education and training is in deep trouble. Fixing this will take a generation. But the question no-one wants to deal with in the current discussion on the skills shortage is: What do we do in the meantime?” 

Talking TETA

For SA transport operators, the shortage of skilled drivers has already reached crisis point. A combination of factors beyond poor skills training including HIV/AIDS, road accident fatalities and poor salaries are helping to stifle meaningful growth of the driver skills pool. With infrastructural development on the rise, it is estimated that truck transport demand will rise by a factor of three (from 2004) to 2012. Where will the required drivers come from?

The duty of ensuring a steady throughput of skilled drivers to the commercial transport industry rests with the sector’s SETA (Sectoral Education and Training Authority), TETA. While TETA has proven to be one of the more efficient SETAs over the last few years, it had the proverbial rug whipped from its feet around June last year when its chief executive, Dr Johan Bothma, was implicated in the Fidentia scandal where some R240 million of TETA funds went missing. 

While Bothma awaits trial, TETA is under curatorship and has a ‘stand- in’ CEO, Dr Johan de Beer, executive officer of the Aerospace Chamber who said in a General Notice to TETA Stakeholders in July 2007: “A thorough assessment of TETA’s funds has been conducted which reveals that with a proper conservative cash flow management, TETA will be able to honour all Mandatory Grant commitments for the 2006/07 financial year as well as all existing Discretionary Grant and SMME contracts, finalised before 1st of May 2007. Each of the eight respective chambers within TETA will provide details to stakeholder companies of the actual contracts. These funds will also be obtained through a process of ‘house cleaning’. 

TETA’s Tuelo Mogashoa believes transport operators need to employ Skills Development Facilitators to help them unlock the Skills Development Fund to get skills levy rebates flowing back into their coffers.

“An investigation has indicated that there are a number of ‘dormant’ Discretionary Grant contracts (where funds were provided for) that have not shown any movement and where training has not been implemented by companies. Discretionary Grant contracts that have not delivered in accordance with the contractual obligations and disbursement requirements will be cancelled to release these funds for delivery of training towards new signed contracts. TETA will have a limited amount of funds available to provide for new Discretionary Grants for 2007/08 financial year.” 

Failures and fixes

Embezzled funds aside, the efficacy of SETAs across the board has been brought into question by the Minister of Labour, Membathisi Mdladlana who, in October 2007, warned that the number of SETAs would be reduced in 2010 and that they “had not accomplished what they were intended to do: enhance workplace skills.” 

According to the CDE report: “Most companies surveyed found SETAs cumbersome to deal with, SETA assessors poorly trained, SETA training too theoretical, or not relevant to their training needs. The old five-year apprenticeship system was seen as more effective in producing the levels of workmanship required in modern business.” 

The CDE’s Bernstein argues that, “While we are grappling with fixing our struggling education and training system, immediate responses available are the speedy restoration of the apprentice system, opening up of immigration and a government re-think on the pressures for employment equity. Unless there is strong leadership to recruit, retain and utilise all the skills available to us in the domestic as well as the global markets, the private sector will struggle to expand capacity and the South African economy will be held back.” 

Getting on with it 

For most transport companies, the process of engaging fully with the Skills Development Act involving learnerships, in-house training, accreditation, levy rebate securement etc. is way too complex and time consuming. 

Tuelo Mogashoa, executive officer of TETA’s Road Freight Chamber, believes adjustments in strategy are necessary within her organisation. 

“Scarce skills need to be linked to more realistic target setting. There is an unacceptably high dropout rate among learners and a general lack of quality among training service providers. As much as companies are forced to pay their skills levy, they aren’t legally obliged to submit workplace skills plans or train or claim their levy rebates. TETA needs to offer incentives to companies to deliver on-the-job training funded by ‘workplace experience grants’.” 

But while TETA’s woes continue, operators out there are taking matters into their own hands. Some are claiming Skills Levy rebates while others pay (over and above their 1% of payroll Skills Levy) for training that is not accredited by TETA because no unit standards exist for the subjects in question because TETA has no Subject Matter Expert employed to accredit such training material. 

Once again, it’s about keeping head above water, survival, making sure you have the necessary resources to meet demand. The following pages offer some insight into how some operators – with the help of suppliers - are getting the right flesh and blood behind the wheel and in the workshops to keep your fleet running smoothly. 

Down time - Lack of skills turn operations into sitting ducks.