Question NW2197 to the Minister of Transport

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24 August 2017 - NW2197

Profile picture: Hunsinger, Mr CH

Hunsinger, Mr CH to ask the Minister of Transport

Whether he intends to conduct a skills and qualifications audit on the top leadership of (a) his department and (b) each entity reporting to him; if not, in each case, why not; if so, (i) how will the audit be conducted, (ii) who will conduct the audit, (iii) what form will it take, (iv) what are the intended consequences to those who have lied or provided misleading information with regard to their skills and qualifications?

Reply:

Department

(a) The Department of Transport conducted a comprehensive skills audit commissioned by the then Minister: Ms Dipuo Peters during 2016/17 financial year. The project included employees across all levels including top leadership.

(i) The skills audit was conducted through employees responding to electronic questionnaires. The report was generated as per the approved Terms of Reference.

(ii) The Department appointed the service provider through a tendering process to conduct the skills audit in collaboration with the Human Resource Team and other relevant departmental stakeholders.

(iii) The skills audit was conducted to identify the skills matrices for the organization which resulted in departmental competency dictionary. Employees were requested to respond to questions that assist in the identification of the available qualifications, skills, knowledge and competencies against the identified skills profile for the organization. The Department achieved the response rate of 95%, which are the leading institutions where the service provider conducted such a project.

(iv) The Department is continuously verifying all the qualifications for employees. All the qualifications in which employees alleged to have are verified with the South African Qualification Authority. In terms of skills, the department was assured that the skills audit system had a build-in function to pick any discrepancies and normalize it accordingly.

Air Traffic and Navigation Services SOC Limited (ATNS)

(a) Yes, the audit and verification of qualifications was once again conducted in February 2016 for all Executives at ATNS. This is an ongoing process, whereby verification of skills and qualifications gets done by the MiE Background Screening, as and when the recruitment and/or promotion takes place.

(b) Yes

  1. The Audit gets conducted using the External Verification Agency known as MIE Background Screening from time to time and this was further handled with the State Security Agency. This was further followed by the verification of both the skills and qualifications for both Top Management and Senior Management in November 2016 as part of the Talent Management Process. This will be ongoing as it now forms part of our Talent management process and succession management
  2. The Verification Agency called MiE Background Screening
  3. All the Individual’s qualifications get forwarded to the Agency for verification. The Agency contacts the stated tertiary institutions for confirmation and verification of the qualifications and thereafter, reports confirming the authenticity/legitimacy of qualifications gets forwarded to ATNS.
  4. The intended consequences will be a disciplinary action, that may result in termination of employment of the individual.

Cross-Border Road Transport Agency

The (b) C-BRTA conducted a qualifications audit on the top leadership in 2016 through MIE. For new appointments, qualifications are audited through MIE prior to extension of offer of employment and also verification is done with referees provided by the employee before appointment to confirm the skills mentioned on their curriculum vitae and during the interviews.

(i),(ii),(iii) – Not applicable

(iv) The intended consequences to those who would have been found to have lied or provided misleading information was to subject them to disciplinary action if already appointed and disqualify them if they are considered for appointment.

Road Accident Fund

(b) The Road Accident Fund (RAF) conducted a skills and qualifications audit on its top leadership: on 31 October 2015; and it has implemented an updated Resourcing Policy and associated Standard Operating Procedure (collectively hereinafter referred to as “the Framework”), which Framework provides for extensive controls prior to the appointment of a job applicant, including: reference checks to establish whether the job applicant was found guilty of any misconduct or breach of trust; criminal record checks; financial stability checks; psychometric and competency assessments, which focus on critical generic leadership, managerial competencies, technical and professional competencies; and, verification by an external service provider of the authenticity of all qualifications.

Road Traffic Infringement Agency

(b) The Road Traffic Infringement Agency (RTIA) does intend to conduct a skills and qualification audit on its leadership personnel;

(i) The audit will be conducted by assessing gaps of current job holders with job profile competency and qualification requirements;

(ii) An independent service provider will be appointed to conduct the audit;

(iii) The audit will be conducted through a competency-based battery of tests, simulation scenarios and written tasks;

(iv) The applicable policies and current practice approaches will be followed to deal with cases of those that have lied or provided misleading information with regard to their skills and qualifications.

Road Traffic Management Corporation

The RTMC has the skills and qualifications audit of the top leadership which can be provided.

(i); All top leadership’s qualifications were verified; they wrote competency assessment tests which was conducted by a qualified Psychologist during their recruitment to assessed their skills and competencies, the results of which informed their appointment.

(ii); (iii); (iv) fall away. No one was found to have lied about their qualifications at top leadership level.

South African National Roads Agency Limited

(a) SANRAL already conducts skills and qualifications audits of its Top Management and Board members. This was initiated back on 2014.

  1. A once off verification was done for all incumbents in 2014 and all new employees are subjected to the same verification upon recruitment
  2. This is conducted through MIE
  3. As per the supplier – verifications of all alleged qualifications are done with the identified institutions of higher learning. Staff are also required to reproduce copies of qualifications for filing purposes.
  4. Employees that are found to have misrepresented qualifications are subjected to a disciplinary process, in line with the company disciplinary code.

Airports Company South Africa SOC Limited (ACSA)

Airports Company South Africa process followed

Given the ongoing misrepresentation of academic qualifications taking place in the country, and its adverse impact on the Country’s reputation, the creditability of its Institutions and the National Qualification Framework, the Government has taken a firm stance to crack down on qualification fraud in the public sector. The Government has therefore called upon all its Departments to act decisively in addressing this challenge.

The Minister of Transport thus requested the ACSA Board to conduct a full scale audit of the qualifications of all its senior employees to identify any discrepancies which may exist.

The Top Management Qualifications audit was subsequently concluded by the Internal Audit Department and a report submitted to the Board of Airports Company South Africa.

Airports Company South Africa response to subsection of the Parliamentary question

Whether he intends to conduct a skills and qualifications audit on the top leadership of (a) his department and (b) each entity reporting to him

It was done and fully concluded by the 2015/2016 financial year.

(i) how will the audit be conducted, (ii) who will conduct the audit, (iii) what form will it take,

The audit was conducted by Internal Audit of the business and reported to the Board of the Company;

The information was verified as valid against declared qualification/s reflected on the CV via an independent third party service provider, MIE.

(iv) what are the intended consequences to those who have lied or provided misleading information with regard to their skills and qualifications?

In the Qualifications Audit completed, no Employees in top leadership (Executives) at ACSA were found to have misrepresented. This therefore did not necessitate any action be taken.

South African Civil Aviation Authority (SACAA)

(a) Not applicable, (b) the South African Civil Aviation Authority (SACAA) conducted a skills and qualifications audit for its leadership team, i.e. the Board, Executives, and Senior Management, during the 2015/16 financial year. (i) A service provider was appointed to conduct each audit. (ii) The SACAA conducted the skills audit through an audit; and the qualifications audit was conducted through a vetting process. (iv) The entity takes any misinterpretation very seriously and would invoke the disciplinary policy or procedure on affected employees. There were no misinterpretations found.

(b) South African Maritime Safety Authority(SAMSA)

(c) 

(d) (b) Yes.

(e) (i) Electronically

(f) (ii) External party sourced through a procurement process.

(g) (iii) Skills audit will be done by comparing skills required for the job with skills of the employee in that job. Qualifications audit will be done through verification agencies and/or submission of original copies.

(h) (iv) Disciplinary process shall be followed.

Ports Regulator (RSA)

(b) A qualification audit of the PRSA was requested by the previous Minister of Transport to be done by SAQA. This was done and submitted to the Minister. All qualifications were verified to be accurately represented.

Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (PRASA)

(a) The PRASA Board through the instruction of the Department of Transport Minister has conducted a Skills and Qualifications Audit on All PRASA Executives, General Managers and Senior Managers.

(i) Formal qualification supplied on appointment of employee and subsequent qualifications will be submitted to the South African Qualifications Authority (SAQA)

(ii) The Skills and qualifications Audit was done through the South African Qualifications Authority (SAQA).

(iii) All formal qualifications supplied by the employees have been verified,

(iv) There are 22 employees that were withdrawn by SAQA either because the employees have since resigned, are dead, the qualification had been misplaced or they are not in the management level.

Railway Safety Regulator (RSR)

Railway Safety Regulator has not conduct a skills and qualifications audit on the top leadership

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