Staff Reporter
THE Graduate Institute of Financial Sciences (GIFS) is leading the charge to save South Africa’s financial services sector from state capture, and possible long-term collapse. GIFS is challenging the Insurance Sector Education and Training Authority (INSETA), which appears to be ignoring its mandate to ‘grow the pool and quality of critical and scarce skills within the insurance sector.’
The work of thousands of professionals is now under threat, with the INSETA holding back 192 GIFS students’ full completion certificates, and those of 555 others who have completed skills programmes or achieved part-qualifications, some dating back to 2020. Hundreds more learners from other institutions are similarly affected.
Despite numerous requests, the training authority has failed to produce the certification, putting peoples’ jobs at risk. Worse still, it often unfairly blames the institutions when students complain.
A wider concern within the financial services sector is that the Skills Development Levy (which companies pay towards upskilling their staff) is growing annually, yet learnership funding has been reduced year-on-year. Employers who raise questions around the reduced funding and INSETA’s poor service delivery are seemingly victimised by having their funding further cut.
On 17 October 2023, GIFS wrote to the Public Protector to intervene, expressing concern that the INSETA was riddled with corruption. Despite it being framed as a neutral regulatory body, GIFS had also uncovered evidence that the INSETA was deliberately streaming prospective learners to one favoured learning institution whose educational practices have been called into question.
GIFS’ decision to tackle these issues head-on, has resulted in the INSETA launching a brazen public campaign to discredit GIFS, and drive it out of business, despite the educational institution’s crucial role in training the majority of South Africa’s insurance professionals. After the institute had closed its offices for the end-of-year holiday on 14 December 2023, the INSETA sent GIFS a letter at 5:38pm,
informing it of its immediate de-accreditation as a Skills Development Provider.
The move came as a shock to the respected, international award-winning educational institution, which has trained thousands of students from corporate South Africa in the last 18-years. GIFS programmes form part of the National Qualifications Framework and are approved by the South African Qualifications Authority.
In addition, the INSETA itself had awarded GIFS Full Accreditation status up to June 2024 in line with its practice of awarding certification annually.
But GIFS has risen to the INSETA’s challenge, turning to the courts to restore its accreditation. In an urgent High Court interdict on Thursday, 4 January 2024, GIFS’ legal counsel accused the INSETA of corporate bullying and victimisation. They argued that the INSETA’s withdrawal of GIFS’ accreditation was based on a GIFS fraud investigation report it compiled just over 2-years-ago, now under review in the courts. GIFS maintains the report is fraught with trumped-up allegations, overt bias, glaring irregularities and multiple procedural flaws, and has only held off on its legal review as the INSETA had renewed its accreditation after the report was finalised in 2021.
In view of this, the court ordered the INSETA:
To reinstate GIFS’ full accreditation within 24-hours;
To immediately withdraw all unlawful notifications the INSETA had distributed to industry stakeholders informing them of GIFS’s de-accreditation;
To reassure the public on its INSETA website and via e-mail of the full restoration of GIFS’
accreditation, and;
To pay the costs of GIFS’ legal counsel.
Unfortunately, the INSETA has ignored the court order.GIFS lists this as an example of the INSETA’s bad faith and says it cannot rule out that its December 14th de-accreditation stems from having reported the INSETA to the Public Protector, and to oversight body, the Quality Council for Trade and Occupations (QCTO), for incompetence over the certification delays. By December, the Public Protector had already confirmed to GIFS that it had asked INSETA for its response to the GIFS corruption allegations.
Still, GIFS CEO, Kershen Pillay, says the court’s finding is not just a victory for GIFS, but the entire financial services sector. “The impact of the INSETA’s conduct extends well beyond the effects on one educational institution and its learners. Thousands of accredited students have been left without proof of their qualifications and risk losing their livelihoods, while the unqualified, in possession of their fraudulent certificates, are allowed to dole out dodgy financial advice.”
Pillay goes on to say, “This represents the hollowing out of the country’s financial services industry, as has already occurred in many other South African sectors due to corruption and incompetence.”
There will be serious repercussions for those buying homes, motor vehicles, life- and short-term insurance, for pensioners and many others who will be forced to deal with individuals wholly unqualified to be advising clients on critical matters of personal finance. We, at GIFS, are therefore committed to playing our role in ensuring that ethical standards are respected and upheld in the financial services industry and that members of the public are protected.” Pillay is concerned that the QCTO has remained alarmingly silent in the face of the INSETA’s questionable conduct. “We again appeal to the QCTO to please exercise its oversight duty and intervene to help us save the
industry,” Pillay said.
INSIDE EDUCATION
