Dear Portfolio Committee on Higher Education and Training,

I am a previous beneficiary of a graduate placement at the KZN Sharks Board Maritime Centre of Excellence, Funded by the National Skills Fund. I was recruited in 2017,signed an internship contract on the 23rd of November 2017 to automatically terminate end of October 2018. Upon finishing a two weeks induction,we were told to give them time to prepare and sort out placements. We would be contacted in January for further details, we waited and waited until April 2018. No communication happened, but we were receiving stipends of 5000 a month despite the fact we were sitting at home. We enquired in writing and physically nothing was said to us. This continued till the last month of our contracts and when we seeked clarity we were chased out.
I then reffered the matter to TeTa (Seta involved),in writing to the head responsible for funding KZNSB, Mr Malcom Alexander who motivated me to report this wasteful expenditure. I further took it up with NSF the Head of Funding, they dodged answering. I took it up with Corruption Watch, who are still investigating the matter.
They had to hold the investigation due to an action by NSF and KZNSB to correct their previous error of not placing us and giving proper training, with another internship contract. So the investigators at corruption watch did not want to jeopardize this new opportunity and had to hold.
The new contract begun 1 May 2018 to 30 April 2019. This time we were placed within KZNSB under the Maritime Centre of Excellence, they had a building that was under renovations km away from Head office, we were placed there to wait for the upgrades. Once completed, we will be fully operational and get the experience/development we had demanded. They had intended to make this building a maritime academy for boat builders. We waited, reporting for duty daily, for these upgrades to complete. They never ended, instead we were being exposed to the highest order of procurement irregularities,tender irregularities,fraud and corruption. They use this building including the un- accredited courses with bogus facilitators. The head of the Centre who enjoys protection from the board and CEO,would normally go out stakeholders such as NSF,TETA, Municipalities,SAMSA to name a few, to raise funds in the name of corporation education and divert those funds to fund political projects,to cash out through the rewarding of people and families close to the executives and head of Maritime Centre of excellence. There paper trails in my possession to back up these claims.
Upon the completion of the second contract which was also fruitless and did not benefit us in any correct way, I signalled to corruption watch to continue with the probe and would offer the all the assistance they need. I did furnish them with all they have requested for. But would like to also probe the matter with you guys,since corruption watch has a reputation of not acting.
I do have incriminating evidence implicating Sharks Board in wrongdoing in almost all their operations. The mother department was lead by Mr Zikalala ( now Premier) when all this was happening. There has been many reporting done by people working for the organisation to KZN treasurer that remain ignored. The minister before vacating office made sure that he covers up as quickly as possible. They had implemented an exit strategy to remove the Maritime Centre of Excellence to Merge with Moses Kotane Institute, and rewarded it's corruption practitioners with new post.
Please engage me on email: mayaya67@gmail.com, via contact: 0614560485. To further get the full turn of evebts. I am prepared to surrender any documention,give clarity and assist in any way possible. I just can not sit and watch people who have done an injust to the hundreds of people involved in this scheme, watch people loot the public purse and escape with impunity.