Ivor Blumenthal - his latest battle.

http://www.iol.co.za/business/business-news/services-seta-will-sue-nzimande-over-hijack-1.1054743

Services Seta ‘will sue Nzimande over hijack’
April 11 2011 at 06:04am
By Ayanda Mdluli


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The Services Sector Education and Training Authority (Seta) announced on Friday that it would take legal action against the Minister of Higher Education and Training, Blade Nzimande, citing a lack of consultation on the proposed new constitution, and unlawful interventions by the department in the Seta’s governance affairs.

The attempted overhaul of the Setas by Nzimande could result in a boycott by business of the payment of the skills development levy, said Ivor Blumenthal, the chief executive of the Services Seta.

“They may simply choose to ignore it… and business will no longer create learnership and internship opportunities because the Setas have been hijacked,” he said.

Blumenthal said Nzimande wanted to reduce the size of the Seta boards to 15 members.

This move would silence small industries and businesses that made up 90 percent of the 180 000 companies associated with the Services Seta, said Blumenthal.

Thousands of services firms pay skills development levies, of which 20 percent goes to the minister’s National Skills Development Fund. The rest is allocated to the Services Seta, which provides a budget of R750 million every year.

“We object to the administrative intervention by the minister in the governance of the Services Setas to the extent that he has acted unlawfully,” said Blumenthal.

Business Unity SA said it was also preparing an application for an urgent interdict against Nzimande.

Last week Nzimande appointed Sihle Moon, a former ANC researcher and SA Local Government Association Western Cape representative, as the Services Seta’s independent chairman. After the confirmation of his appointment on Friday, his first step was to suspend Blumenthal.

Blumenthal said he was still the chief executive and that the constitution did not have a clause that would enable Nzimande to appoint a chairman to sack him.

Alex Ferreira, an attorney at Edward Nathan Sonnenbergs, the law firm representing the Services Seta, said the legal issues in the case extended beyond the functioning of the Seta and maintained that everyone had to be subject to the law.

He added that the case, which would be heard at the Labour Court, could go all the way to the Constitutional Court because the Seta’s constitution, which was signed on February 18 this year, was being ignored by the department.

The gazetted constitution says that it is the members of the Seta who appoint the chief executive and the council.

Gwebs Qonde, the director-general of the Department of Higher Education, said he could not comment on the Seta’s decision to take the department to court.

Qonde said the department had not received “anything” from the Services Seta or its attorneys. - Business Report