Labour: Productivity SA funding challenges over soon?

Productivity SA’s ongoing financial ‘challenges’ could be resolved soon if a proposal that its mandate be ‘fully’ funded by Public Employment Services is adopted, reports Pam Saxby for Legalbrief Policy Watch. According to Employment & Labour Minister Thulas Nxesi, the 2014 Public Employment Services Act and 2016 Unemployment Insurance Amendment Act make funding job schemes ‘a priority’. Addressing Productivity SA’s AGM last week – and noting the importance of ‘reviewing, restructuring and re-engineering’ the way business is done in the interests of improved competitiveness – the Minister called on the institution to lead the way.

The ‘single funder mechanism’ envisaged will apparently address shortfalls in Productivity SA’s allocations from National Treasury, the Department of Trade & Industry and the UIF in the context of additional work undertaken – and given that insufficient revenue is generated by its ‘turn around solutions’, productivity and ‘workplace challenge’ programmes. ‘Persistent bailout applications’ apparently have ‘nothing to do with operational inefficiency’, according to Parliamentary Monitoring Group records of a meeting in February of the previous Parliament’s National Assembly Labour Committee, at which members were briefed on Productivity SA’s first and second quarterly performance.