Tshwane — Business has contributed about R2 million into the initial activities of the newly-launched Joint Initiative on Priority Skills Acquisition (JIPSA).

JIPSA is a multi-stakeholder working group, through which government, labour and business will join forces to fast-track the provision of priority skills required to support accelerated and shared economic growth for the country.

"Finally in business (as in life) money is a good indicator of serious intent," noted the chief executive of AngloGold Ashanti, Mr Bobby Godsell.

Mr Godsell is also one of the business representatives in the JIPSA task team.

Addressing the launch, Mr Godsell said the shortage of skills was not a challenge faced by government alone, but affected other stakeholders, including business and labour.

"Let us as a nation join forces to produce the skills equivalent for new airports, new harbours, and the broadband connectivity of our telecommunications infrastructure," he said.

Mr Godsell called on companies to invest five percent of their payroll on skills development programmes, saying this would benefit their businesses in the long term.

He welcomed the introduction of JIPSA, saying that new ideas were imperative if the country was to undo the skills inequalities created by apartheid.

"Good ideas are useless unless matched with good deeds. These are deeds that I think will be present in every company that is serious about its long term future in South Africa," he said.

Mr Godsell also said that JIPSA needed to address skills shortage at three levels, including at the operational "broad based education" level of the workplace, artisan, management and leadership levels.

The JIPSA programme will be implemented in phases, with the first phase expected to be completed in 18 months. The complete life span of the project is set at three years.

The project's joint task team, which is headed by Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, comprises 23 members, including government ministers, business and labour.

The joint task team will identify and advise on the shortage of scarce skills highly sought to help the country achieve an economic growth rate of six percent by 2010, to halve unemployment and poverty by 2014.