AG confirms SETA system has been captured

EFF STATEMENT ON THE AUDITOR-GENERAL'S FINDINGS OF IRREGULAR BOARD APPOINTMENTS AT MICT SETA Monday, 07 September 2026 The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) has noted the findings of the Auditor-General (AG) that the appointment of Accounting Authority (board) members at fifteen Sector Education and Training Authorities (SETAs) was irregular. This confirms what the EFF has long maintained: that the SETA system has been captured as a site of patronage rather than governed as an instrument of skills development. The Media, Information and Communication Technologies (MICT) SETA illustrates precisely the pattern the AG has identified. The Skills Development Act requires every SETA to function strictly in accordance with the Act, the Skills Development Levies Act and its own Constitution, which must clearly define the organisations entitled to participate in its governance. The MICT SETA Constitution gives effect to this through Annexure 4, which lists the organised labour formations, organised employer bodies and other recognised constituencies of the sector. Any organisation not listed in Annexure 4 must formally apply for recognition, and can only be added once the Minister has determined that it belongs within the sector. Participation in the nomination process is therefore not discretionary; it is a matter of law, precisely the kind of legal requirement the AG has now found was widely disregarded. The current MICT SETA Accounting Authority, appointed for the term 1 April 2025 to 31 March 2030, includes Ms Lebogang Sethole-Masilela of Primedia (Pty) Ltd, Mr Mzikayise Ndlovu of Progressive Blacks in ICT, Mr Sabelo Mahlathi of SANCO, and Ms Ntombikayise Khumalo of the Communications Workers Union (CWU). Primedia, Progressive Blacks in ICT, and SANCO do not appear in the version of Annexure 4 presently available, and were not listed as nominating organisations in the published 2025–2030 nomination notice. Should these organisations have since been recognised, MICT SETA and the Department must produce the full documentary trail: the application for recognition, the Accounting Authority's decision on that recognition, the Minister's determination that the organisation belongs in the sector, and the corresponding lawful amendment of Annexure 4. Absent this record, these three appointments are prima facie irregular. Compounding this, Primedia is a private company yet has been treated as an organised-employer constituency, a status the Constitution reserves for recognised employer organisations; the basis on which Progressive Blacks in ICT and SANCO were accepted as qualifying constituencies is similarly undisclosed. The appointment of Ms Khumalo raises a distinct problem. CWU is a recognised constituency under Annexure 4, so the question is not CWU's eligibility but whether its nominee was properly authorised. Annexure 4 requires nominees to be drawn from the ranks of senior officials of their organisation, a requirement none of the affected members appear to meet. CWU itself disputed Ms Khumalo's nomination and formally recalled her as its representative, communicating this to the SETA and the Minister. The Constitution is explicit that a member vacates office where they cease to meet Annexure 4's eligibility requirements, or where their organisation formally requests their removal. That Ms Khumalo has continued to sit on, and be remunerated by, the Accounting Authority after her own union recalled her is unacceptable. MICT SETA's own call for nominations required rigorous compliance checks, including nomination documentation, qualifications, SAQA verification, criminal-record and citizenship verification, curriculum vitae, seniority verification and declarations of interest. These exist precisely to prevent the kind of irregular appointments the AG has now confirmed occurred across the sector. This is not administrative technicality. Where an appointment has no lawful foundation, the public money paid to the appointee cannot be treated as ordinary expenditure. The Skills Development Act requires SETAs to be managed in accordance with the PFMA, with the AG empowered to audit and report on compliance, while the MICT SETA Constitution requires irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure to be disclosed and provides for independent forensic audits. The EFF therefore demands full public disclosure of all fifteen SETAs implicated in the Auditor-General's findings and the irregularities at each; an independent investigation into the four affected MICT SETA appointments; immediate release of all nomination, verification and recommendation records, including any Minister-approved amendment authorising Primedia, Progressive Blacks in ICT and SANCO's participation; disclosure of each member's nominating authority and all correspondence on CWU's recall of Ms Khumalo; a full accounting and recovery, across all fifteen SETAs, of remuneration paid to irregularly appointed board members; and consequence management for officials responsible, with a public explanation from the Minister wherever appointments defied a SETA's own compliance findings. The EFF will not allow the Auditor-General's findings to be filed away and forgotten, and will pursue all necessary avenues, including Parliamentary oversight mechanisms, to ensure accountability and the recovery of any public funds unlawfully paid across all fifteen affected SETAs. Issued by Sinawo Thambo, National Spokesperson, Economic Freedom Fighters, and 7 September 2026