04 Sep 2017

Human Resource Development Council (HRDC) claims manager, Mr Ndiwo Makula has implored businesses to make use of the training fund established for skills development.

Speaking at a HRDC breakfast seminar in Palapye recently, Mr Makula said government introduced the training levy as a subsidy to try and encourage the training of employees and improve the quality of work.

The levy is operated through a levy grant system where companies pay a levy into the fund and are reimbursed the costs that they incurred for training their employees.

He raised concern that some companies paid a levy into the fund but did not utilise it.

He added that so far only 15 per cent of companies utilised the levy last year.

Mr Makula said only companies with an annual turnover of P1 million must pay the training levy.

He advised that training must be undertaken at accredited training providers, and that only citizens training costs were claimable.

He noted that claimable costs included tuition, stationery costs, trainee salaries prorated to number of days in training and travel costs.

The HRDC is responsible for providing policy advice on all matters of national human resource development, coordination and promotion of the implementation of the National Human Resource Development Stategy, Sector Human Resource Development

Plans, and planning and advising on tertiary education financing and workplace learning.

For her part, the sector committees manager, Ms Boingotlo Mpofu added that “the country is still struggling with issues of unemployment, work ethics and diversification of the economy among others.”

She said human resource development was identified as one of the areas that government could invest in to address such challenges.

Ms Mpofu said government approved the National Human Resource Development Strategy (NHRDP) on order to have a holistic approach to addressing human resource challenges.

“The plan seeks to address misalignment between supply of graduates and demand for skills from the labour market,” she added.

She said the lack of the requisite skills to meet job requirements of employers had been identified as one of the major reasons attributed to unemployment.

She also added that government would like the country to move from a middle-income economy to high-income economy by 2036 hence the need for a productive workforce.  BOPA