OUTA has made a formal complaint to the Information Regulator against the Services Sector Education and Training Authority (Services SETA) over its refusal to grant OUTA access to records it requested. 

In a bid to obtain an investigation report compiled by Werksmans Attorneys following the Werksmans’ investigation into certain Services SETA (SSETA) tenders, OUTA tried a new strategy. The tenders were awarded to different service providers including Grayson Reed, Star Sign and Print, and Five Stars Communications and Projects. 

OUTA submitted a PAIA request to SSETA on 27 November 2023 after several failed attempts to obtain the information.  

The Werksmans’ investigation resulted from OUTA’s investigations into allegations of procurement irregularities at SSETA. The tender worth R162.6 million was for the procurement and management of a biometric learner attendance monitoring system and for making direct payments of stipends to learners and worth. We were alerted to it by a whistleblower in 2018.

In 2019, we submitted a PAIA request for information on the tender awarded to Grayson Reed to the SETA, who provided us with a few documents but refused the rest. We challenged this refusal in court and, in November 2021, the Johannesburg High Court ordered the SSETA to provide us with the requested documents. The court also made a cost order of R97 494 against them. 

Further investigations by OUTA uncovered a series of procurement irregularities at the SSETA, resulting in a report detailing our findings. This was handed over to law enforcement agencies and the Services SETA.

On 5 October 2022, during a meeting between OUTA and the SSETA, we presented our report. In turn, the SSETA committed to tabling it at their next executive meeting, in late October 2022. They also committed to using OUTA’s report as a basis for further investigation by an independent legal firm. 

Werksmans Attorneys was subsequently appointed to investigate. They compiled a report, but OUTA was denied access to it by the SSETA, who claimed that the report was obtained for the purpose of assisting them to create policies to avert future procurement corruption and for possible action against implicated individuals.

But, it said, since the report made adverse findings and conclusions against individuals who had not been afforded a right to be heard, it would not be in the public interest or fair to the implicated individuals to share the report with OUTA. 

OUTA considers the dismissal of our request for the report as arbitrary and unsubstantiated.  It is our view that the SSETA has an obligation to foster transparency and accountability, which is why we filed a complaint with the Information Regulator.

Sadly, the Services SETA is not the only culprit in the Department of Higher Education. OUTA has had difficulty in obtaining information requested through PAIA applications from other institutions in the Department of Higher Education as well. 

More on OUTA's investigation into the Services SETA is here, here and here.