FIETA

The Forest Industry Education and Training Authority (FIETA) was established along side other Sector Education and Training Authorities (SETA’s) to promote training and development initiatives in specific sectors or industries. Their main functions, amongst many, include:

• Developing and implementing sector skills plans, focusing on issues such as skills shortages in the Industry
• To promote and register learnerships and
• To distribute grants to employers that participate in the planning and implementing of workplace skills plans

The other function of the FIETA is to ensure quality training through their Education and Training Quality Assurance (ETQA) leg.

What’s in it for the employer?

1% of your salaries and wages expenditure is paid over to SARS. The money is then allocated to the relevant SETA. You can claim most your money back (grants) by:

• Registering yourself (as the owner of the business) or one of your employees as the Skills Development Facilitator. This is the person who will take responsibility for developing and implementing your training plans and submitting it to the FIETA. You may also outsource this function to a provider.
• By submitting Workplace Skills Plans (WSP) and
• By submitting Implementation Plans

FIETA also has the task of paying out discretionary grants, over and above the abovementioned grants, for initiatives that the employer undertakes, such as the implementation of learnerships.

FIETA projects

Each chamber in the FIETA structure is represented by employer and employee representatives (union officials). All unclaimed grants are then allocated to projects in the Industry, related to the sector skills plan.

*Projects include:

• Developing the business skills of SMME’s
• Training of retrenched employees
• Supporting the development of national standards and qualifications (relevant to our industry) and
• HIV/Aids initiatives

FIETA Representatives

If you have questions or require more information, you can visit the website:
www.fieta.org.za