05 Jun 2016

Ministry of Labour and Home Affairs permanent secretary, Ms Pearl Ramokoka says the Construction Industry Trust Fund (CITF) was established with a view to augment skills in the construction industry.

Appearing before PAC, June 2, Ms Ramokoka said that was because there was critical shortage of semi-skilled and skilled artisans to handle the large amount of work in the construction industry.

“We focus on construction fund because there is a lot of construction going on in the country and we realised that most people are skilled without certificates, and therefore we enrol such people,” she said. Ms Ramokoka also said the Kazungula Mobile Training Unit was introduced to address skills needs on-site where there was construction going on.

She, however, said although the initiative was introduced without any survey, it had been evident that there was a lot of construction in mining and agriculture development that needed training and upgrading of skills of artisans to meet demands and challenges posed by the building and construction industry.

Meanwhile, the ministry was advised to re-submit before the committee for failure to reconcile books or unbalanced books of accounts. ENDS