Premier Zamani Saul announced that the R210 million deal with merSETA will see young people in the province receive training, awarded bursaries and jobs being created. 

Over 2000 young people in the province are expected to be beneficiaries of this project. Saul said he is happy that the province, which is one of the most ignored, will highly benefit from this deal. He further said the deal would also go a long way in curbing the high unemployment rate due to a lack of skills, among other things.

“They are investing about R210 million in our province. It will be directed at ensuring we train young people in this very critical sector of the economy. You should know the importance of manufacturing, engineering services and building in growing the economy. What’s important, is the fact that we have R210 million invested in our province, mainly to train young people,” Saul said.

Meanwhile, the Acting CEO of merSETA, Disa Mpande, said she is excited to partner with the provincial government to ensure that young people are upskilled and give back to the community. Mande also mentioned that they will also invest in technical schools to revamp laboratories.

“We are very passionate about skills development. We are leaders and I think this is the biggest that we have done in this province. What we’ve seen in our experience is that by the time young people get to the TVET college, they don’t go there because they want to. They go there because they don’t have any other option available to them. We want to start it while they are still young so that they are excited about technical opportunities and hand skills,” concluded Mpande.

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