Skills wise, what have you really given to your country lately? Are you the serving or the grabbing kind? How would you know? What is the little voice inside telling you?
Next time you turn on a light, a water tap, flush the toilet and take out the trash, remember this: you are part of a fraction of the privileged few on this planet, let alone in this great country of great disparities and contrasts. South Africa faces massive infrastructure backlogs and poor operation and maintenance of existing infrastructure. This scenario has, for a while now, resulted in inadequate delivery of basic services, especially to sections of the population in more desperate situations. Skills flights and growing shortages do not help the situation.
Communities in low capacity municipalities in remote rural areas have bigger and more urgent service delivery challenges than the richer metros, yet some of the densely populated urban centres have become the major hubs for poverty and economic desperation. There are thousands of young people with some level of education living in our urban centres. They roam the streets and cannot find jobs because they have no experience and no skills to land any jobs.
Matriculants need to gain usable skills for them to be employable. Where do they get these from after finishing matric or a tertiary qualification? Internships and apprenticeship training are possible alternatives. Somehow we have to move beyond the lingering sense of entitlement from among black and white matriculants and graduates who expect someone, somewhere, to create employment for them so they can just slot in as soon as school is up. This new thinking is here already, but success stories are too few and far between.
I am not sure I want to agree with the national secretary of the Young Communist League, Buti Manamela, who recently called for military service targeting young people. Yet a part of me feels that an army of well-drilled young people can help revamp the rotting infrastructure in most small and low capacity municipalities that cannot afford the costs of operation and maintenance (O&M). This can help train or re-train often over-extended and frustrated municipal officials, while providing skills to our youth.
With the global financial crisis, the message must be loud and clear that some of these so-called reliable macro-economic policies do not serve us all well in the long-run. It could be better not to expect to find a job, but to build a skill and a trade that one can sell anywhere … and that goes for all our youth, regardless of skin tone. Spread this message to the youth out there: get off your butt and make something of your life on your own. Start somewhere. Where? Right where you are! Else you’ll soon find yourself doing “left-right” marches as Private Joe in the army.
The fact that in some municipalities with limited revenue generation capacity, over 40% of their water is lost in the distribution network before it gets to the (paying) consumer smacks of criminal negligence. Armies of young apprentices, all mixed, backed up by the military in terms of training, discipline and delivery can go a long way here. Manamela might have a good point after all, especially in helping take some of the youth off the streets, and reduce the risks associated with their idling (drug and alcohol abuse, STIs, unplanned pregnancies, sense of entitlement, etc).
The formation of a body called Global South Africans by a group of prominent South African business people living and working abroad is a fascinating development. The group’s main objective is to promote South Africa. It seems to be in same vein as other brand-SA promotional material that we so badly need. But this is quite a different story from the notorious issue of mainly white emigration discussed in Khaya Dlanga’s blog. It is not the self-righteous blame game played by some campaigners competing for the imagined moral high ground.
This is real substance about standing up and making a difference as a South African regardless of the reasons for emigration, and in spite of the colour of the skin one is wrapped-in. I think this is incredibly valuable use of one’s business influence, skill and expertise aimed at making a tangible, lasting and positive difference.
The formation of Global South Africans by this 300-strong elite club of expatriates is a powerful demonstration of the healthy dose of patriotism among many of our highly skilled citizens who have elected to move abroad mainly for career advancement. And this comes at a time when there have been increasing reports of massive skills flights from our shores.
I am not at all surprised that there are a lot of influential South Africans putting their personal professional necks out in defence of not only the incredible potential, but the live magic of living in this country. It is what normal nationals do.
And the first prize to me on the skills front and delivering services in poor municipalities goes to Venete Klein, President of the Afrikaanse Handelsinstituut (AHI). Venete and the AHI are busy wrapping up a collaborative relationship with the Presidency and other stakeholders to bring back skilled professionals from retirement to bolster current skills support to municipalities around the country.
Now this is what I call hands-on support with less talk and more action on the ground. Yes, there are similar programmes already in operation in the country. One of them is the flagship capacity building programme funded by national Treasury and run by the Development Bank of Southern Africa’s development fund, aptly named Siyenza Manje, literally “We are doing it now”. This programme recruits skilled and experienced engineers, finance experts and planners from around the country and on the continent, and deployes them in low capacity municipalities anywhere in all our nine provinces. The team of deployees’ main task is to support municipal officials, and not to take over municipal officials’ jobs.
The AHI concept of bringing white Afrikaner males out of retirement is important for more than just technical skills provision. It is a unique opportunity for all of us to test how far down the reconciliation road we have really come.
Throwing these retired skilled people into the highly volatile municipal environments would need careful management. For starters, are the skills still relevant? Sure, the engineering formulae for mixing concrete and putting together a bridge couldn’t have changed much. The municipal environment, however, is one that demands a fresh and higher level of people management and relationship management, and of ubuntu intelligence.
The old guard would have to come in with a new mind-set of serving differently, and not with what passes for professional arrogance, the kinds of attitudes that say “I know what you need and I am here to fix you and your mess.” It would have to be a meeting of the minds, halfway along the way. Technical skills are great and provide a great platform to build from, but alone, technical expertise just will not do.
This, to me, is a massive national test that we would do well to prepare carefully for and pass, together. No one I know disagrees with the fact that our current skills shortages and related capacity challenges bring into question our well-meaning affirmative action principles. Only a combination of solutions and compromises on the skills front can take us where we really want to go.
He had 14 years of experience under his belt, with several award-winning engineering designs in his portfolio. After 7 years employment at a major glass manufacturing plant he was denied promotion, and instead was asked to train up a newly qualified young graduate of the correct colour to become his boss.
He is my cousin and now works abroad, along with my two brothers, (a specialist doctor, and a hydrogeologist who presently manages water supplies for the UK, Spain, Turkey and Italy.
Dumisani, bringing back retired skills is a desperate measure. Why are we still chasing away current skills offered by talented young people like my 35 year old cousin?
What a great piece that left me with no words to add other than what you are reading now!
I run a company where my main aim is to help find ways of building bridges between the skills of those that have them with those that seek and desire them. The challenge is in the attitude of both sides of this bridge. I hope that as a nation we can put aside our personal differences and build NEW BRIDGES together.
Moving out inside of moving forward does not serve SA. Anyone with good skills has the potential to develop further if they think laterally. Belle, your relatives took the easy way out not the creative way to assist SA.
FOr the past ten plus years, we have been training people with basic IT skills to become programmers. This has opened up good jobs for them. We have the pleasure and the frustration of seeing them reach new heights and move onto to high paying jobs. They then open up space for us to start with a new batch. We have also seen our sales people grow into their full potential and move into new places.
If this is all that we can do to see the youth grow into its potential here, then we will continue to do so. We look for new avenues as well. Older people coming back into municipalities to act as mentors bring discipline, methodolgies and experience – all of which enable the possessors of the more recent technologies to understand how to best apply them.
Together, we can move forward and build the country that we truly want. Having a “land and infrastructure army” of young people may also be a great idea. Given the state of the infrastructure a lot can be learnt and skills gained by this kind of venture. Who knows but it could be a proving ground for people who have the qualifications but no experience.
Guys (inc Judith),
Please do not believe in good ideas and platitudes. Work within the system? Very difficult when they kick you out!
I do technical work under the colour radar for a major SA municipality. It (the councillors) have no intention of ever changing focus from politics and skin colour to service delivery, no matter how sensible, obvious and simple it is.
Wrong, Judith. My relatives took a very hard and painful decision to emmigrate for the sake of their childrens’ futures. Emmigration is NOT the ‘easy option’. Thats a facile comment. But, as it turns out, they made the right decision.
I hope you are hugely rewarded for your decade of dedication to developing IT skills. Members of my family have spent the past 40 years running an education fund for children unable to afford schooling. My expat brothers are now able to fundraise for the organisation in the UK.
Retired skills are great for mentorship. However you avoid my original question: Why chase away young, value-adding talent because the packaging is the wrong colour?
… or do you expect these young, pale-faced skills to behave like martyrs to a cause, forsaking their own life-options in order to subordinate themselves to a nation that legislates their second-class status?
I appreciate that there is a skills shortage in SA especially in the technical arena however when it comes to municipalities i think the problem of poor service delivery is exacerbated by political appointments.
How does someone with no technical let alone financial know how run a municipalities. My rough estimate would be that 80% of municipalities are headed by incompetent political appointees. This kills not only service delivery but training and skills transfer as well. The best thing that SA can do now is to scrap AA, focus on improving education across the board so as to produce competent graduates. The skills gap can not be closed by forcibly putting incompetent people into positions but it should be seen as a gradual process.
Having worked extensively with DWAF, i see a crisis looming because of the mass resignations of technicians and engineers because inexperienced AA appointees are frustrating them. Retain the experienced personnel and work out a skills transfer scheme, that’s the way to go.