The cost of government

[Yvonne]

Dave, Are you referring to a Learnership rebate?

Not all small business would have learnership potential.
The report I was referring to is the Annual Training Report and The workplace skills plan.

I found a pretty simple site: http://www.labourguide.co.za/sdl.htm for "dummies" like me.

Yvonne

[Dave A]

We need a small business in South Africa Business Management for genuine dummies! publication. (Wiki?)

I really need to get back to working on that.

The report I was referring to is the Annual Training Report and The workplace skills plan.

Yep - we're talking about the same thing. Submit the WSP and ATR and you get the mandatory grant.

One thing to note on this - it's not as if you have to spend as much as you get either. As long as the WSP and ATR are reasonably aligned, you get the grant. It's also not limited to "accredited" training - that's more an issue for getting access to discretionary grants.

We pay approx R13,500 to Skills Development, and spend R18,000 per annum for the consultant to keep our own accreditation applications as a training provider in order.

That pretty much sums up one of the major weaknesses in the system. It's been made so complex, too much money is ending up in the pockets of consultants instead of being invested in training - or as you so aptly put it, getting knowledge "into their minds."

The system is ridiculous. I hate it. But them's the rules to be used and abused. My current theory is the best way to make sure they're changed to something more sensible one day is for them to be raped to the max, because pointing out the flaws and loopholes hasn't had any effect.

[tec0]

If I may be so bold to point out a little thing called cost of living. Now it is true that Eskom is stating that they have lost so much money that it makes me sick to think about it. Fact is why is there no audit being done on Eskom to see where the money is going. After all we are paying more money than ever just to keep the lights on! However let us not forget that Eskom is still Government so this massif negative income will have an effect on us.

Now let us look at you and I. Fact is if you work for someone Government will take TAX from you and they will demand it and take it by force and liquidate you for their money! Who benefits from this money? Fact is you see little benefit if any.

[Dave A]

At least Tokyo Sexwale is setting a good example:

Human Settlements Minister Tokyo Sexwale said on Tuesday his department was introducing austerity measures to slash official travel, accommodation and administration costs.

Sexwale and his deputy Zoe Kota-Fredericks this week started flying economy class to Cape Town to attend parliamentary sittings and all staff had been ordered to do the same, his spokesperson Chris Vick said.

Vick said had Sexwale told his staff: "We need to lead by example. We have to tighten up on expenditure, particularly on some of the big-ticket items such as travel."

The department had placed a moratorium on promotional items and instructed officials to share transport wherever possible.

It had also given orders to cut down on printing and photo-copying costs.

Sexwale and Kota-Fredericks have bucked the ministerial trend for acquiring luxury official vehicles at taxpayers' expense.

The minister was using his own car and his deputy used one from the department's fleet, Vick said.

He said the human settlements department was doing a study of how much it could realistically save and would report to the national treasury once it was completed.
full story from M&G here

[Marq]

He said the human settlements department was doing a study of how much it could realistically save and would report to the national treasury once it was completed.

mmmm.....the crux of the message..methinks. A plan to make a plan to see what they potentially could do about this scenario, that has no deadline date and no real intention to do anything. Lets save some paper costs, do a ra ra about that and no one will realise that we are skimming the bucks from these big projects and other tender stuff where he real savings could be made.