A senior official of the Higher Education Department confirmed to Parliament that he was appointed as the chairperson for a panel to appoint board chairpersons for Sector and Education training Authorities (SETAs), but never attended a meeting.
Chief director for SETA coordination Mabuza Ngubane, along with Advocate Terry Motau, testified on Friday under oath before the Higher Education Portfolio Committee, which is investigating the cancelled appointment of the SETA board chairperson.
Ngubane confirmed that he received an appointment letter on March 10 that contained no terms of reference.
“I did not write any acceptance letter as I viewed this as part of my role as chief director for SETA coordination in the department. There’s no way the process of appointing SETA chairpersons could have been executed without my involvement or the involvement of my office,” he said.
Ngubane defended his decision not to write an acceptance letter.
“I viewed my appointment as part of my normal duties. I did not write an acceptance letter, that one I can confirm. [However] I expected that there will be continuous engagements between the minister’s office and myself, and then I expected that I’ll be notified,” he said.
Ngubane added that he believed there was no additional role expected of him.
He stated that the chief directorate for SETA coordination has always been responsible for coordinating and rendering administrative support and providing technical advice to the process related to the appointment of SETA boards, including the chairpersons.
Ngubane told the MPs that there was no additional remuneration that was given, promised or expected to him since the same appointment required no additional or any extraordinary responsibilities beyond his normal duties.
He said he never attended any meeting of the panel because he did not receive any invitation for the meetings.
“The appointment letter I received stated that the date of the nomination committee meeting will be communicated to me in due course. So I could not attend any meeting because I was not invited to the meeting. Lastly, I reiterate that neither was I involved in setting up any meetings.”
Ngubane also said he had performed his administrative duties not as part of the panel. “So if talking about being part of the panel, I was not, but the administrative duties relating to this process, I have performed them.”
He outlined some of his duties that related to the process that led to the now cancelled appointment of SETA board chairperson.
These included drafting the advert that called for nominations of people to serve as SETA board chairpersons and engaging with the government printers for the publication.
“I have to ensure that after the closing date, all the nominations are captured so that I will submit that to the minister.”
Ngubane said the minister was responsible to appoint the accounting of authority of SETAs and the chairpersons of the accounting authority after consultation with the National Skills Authority.
“After processing all the nominations and getting all of them captured, my duty is to ensure that those are submitted to the minister quickly.”
However, he said the only difference this year was the establishment of the panel that was recommended by him after taking into consideration the audit findings of the previous process of appointing the boards in 2020 to 2025.
Ngubane also stated that following Minster Nobuhle Nkabane’s request on January 16, he submitted a nomination report of the SETA chairpersons via the email.
He also submitted a master list of all the nominations when Nkabane made a request on January 18, and also submitted a spreadsheet of the nominations on March 10.
Asked if the panel has done its work, Ngubane said: “I don’t know.”
Ngubane was quizzed about his denial of knowing the process of the selection and appointment of SETA board chairpersons at one of the committee’s previous meetings.
He said he did not say no to the committee.
“I might have misunderstood the question, which I thought it to be asking me about my employment as a management and the case I misunderstood. I’ll humbly apologise if that was interpreted. That is how it was interpreted, and I thought the question [is] about my role in the process,” Ngubane said.
