On Friday, 04 February 2022 the MEC of Finance and e-Government, Nomantu Nkomo-Ralehoko presided over the graduation ceremony of more than 50 officials from various municipalities in the province who completed the municipal supply chain management learnership programme at Parktonian Hotel in Braamfontein.
This learnership program is a joint initiative between National Treasury, the Transport Sector Education and Training Authority, and Provincial Treasuries. It was developed in 2019 to provide an opportunity for employed municipal SCM officials that did not have a formal SCM qualification to be trained and achieve appropriate skills in this area.
The ceremony was opened by Dr. John Ngwenya who welcomed the guests and laid out the purpose of the day.
The HOD of the Gauteng Provincial Treasury, Ncumisa Mnyani explained that the gathering represented a significant milestone in the Gauteng Provincial governance drive in practical terms to build a transparent and ethical activist government that is accountable to citizens and that promotes the integrity of public institutions.
“The learnership programme is unique, it is targeted at officials who are already employed in SCM functions of municipalities but do not have formal SCM qualifications. We all know that they started a long time ago, and there was no specific qualification as far as supply chain management is concerned,” said Mnyani.
She further said by participating in it, the officials that were graduating on Friday have been able to gain new skills and expertise, hence they were awarded a formal qualification of NQF level 5.
“This is history in making in professionalising SCM in the public sector. We received the funding from TETA in 2018 and we were very much specific to say we are going to take this programme to the local government level. We are here today to celebrate the graduates for their hard work,” said Jeff Hlongwane from National Treasury.
The MEC extended her gratitude to the graduates for successfully finishing the programme till the last day.“Since its launch in 2019, this programme has been highly successful. This is demonstrated by the fact that as we hold this graduation ceremony for the first cohort, we are proud to say the second group of 60 trainees on this learnership have completed their training and their assessments are currently underway,” said MEC.
She continued to say “As Gauteng Provincial Government we are fully committed to professionalising the SCM function in local government. This is a critical component of financial management function that is still experiencing a critical skills shortage in government”.
She ended by saying that the graduates need to use their position to ensure that local government improves the provision of quality public services to citizens every day.
By: Simphiwe Nkosi
