Employers claim from training levy for wrong reasons
Baboki Kayawe | Wednesday February 3, 2016 17:04
Mmegi has learned that employers are not optimally using the fund. It emerged this week that companies eligible for the levy introduced by the then Botswana Training Authority (BOTA) in 2009, are in the habit of training employees with the motive of simply claiming from the fund.
Now under the custodian of Human Resource Development Council (HRDC), the levy has been renamed Human Resource Development Fund. Mmegi established in an interview with HRDC’s workplace support services manager, Doreen Kokorwe that the organisation will conduct countrywide workplace learning workshops to curb this habit.
The workshops that opened yesterday in Lobatse, aims to encourage “workplaces to strengthen skills development within employees”.
Kokorwe added that workplaces need to ensure that training is structured and not done haphazardly.
“Some companies have embarked on training that has not been planned for. These companies train with the sole aim of claiming from the fund,” said Kokorwe. As a result, the workshops are meant to encourage companies to plan their training as well as ensure they are aligned to company operations and national sector needs.
“The work skills plans or training plans describe a company’s training and skills development strategy that will help it meet its overall objectives and targets,” she said.
About 28,000 companies pay this training levy. Though training is claims-inspired, not many companies are claiming from the fund.
In fact, HRDC is not appeased by this trend. As of mid-December, the account stood at a staggering P500 million due to what the HRDC labels “low uptake from local businesses and eligible levy payers”.
Recently, director of funding with the Council Victoria Damane decried the status quo and blamed the private sector for failure to take a lead in training. At the forum held in Francistown, Damane advised employers to “offer short professional courses to upskill your employees for them to stay up to date and relevant in the workplace. Frequent training enhances the professional skills of your staff at the workplace”.
Currently, over 200 courses are eligible for companies to claim training costs for. However, HRDC could not state which courses and skills are a priority to redress challenges of productivity and poor workmanship engulfing the local labour sector. “Information about which skills are priority can best be sourced from the HRD sector committees. These are still developing their sector skills plans and it is out of these plans that we can get a picture of which skills are priority,” said Kokorwe.