WESSA Sishen Report for Anglo American

WESSA INVASIVE ALIEN PLANT PROGRAMME EXPERIENCE

WESSA have proudly implemented skills training & capacity building programmes nationally for DEA’s NRM Programmes (e.g. Working for Water, Working for Wetlands etc) since 2014. the annual budget for this programme implementation is R25m per annum. The NRM Programme model sees contractors in all provinces each employing teams of 11 people to implement NRM programme operations. In 2015 DEA required that all the previous cooperative teams be formalised as (PTY) LTD’s. At this time the contractors were supported by DEA Area Managers to register their entities, but very few received any form of additional support, mentoring or training. As a result their businesses did not all grow and develop beyond this particular working opportunity.

WESSA has been fortunate to assist in non-accredited training to many of the contractor entities in KZN , MP and LP to the benefit of their operations.

eThekwini Municipality’s Working for Ecosystems was implemented by WESSA from 2007. A similar contractor model as NRM Programmes was required. WESSA’s Contractor Support was significant and saw contractors being mentored to successfully bid for work throughout KZN.

This WFE programme has not been operational in 2019, but all contractors have successfully managed to continue to grow and diversify their businesses.

WESSA and these individuals believe that this is directly related to the expert support and networking opportunities they received while on the WFE programme .