Chemical Industries Education and Training Authority CEO Yershen Pillay. (Supplied) 
“What more must we do?” That’s the question Chemical Industries Education and Training Authority (Chieta) CEO Yershen Pillay keeps coming back to. He asks it not in frustration – though there’s a touch of that – but as a man trying to defend the integrity of an organisation he says has turned a corner under his leadership.
Pillay is not here to deny that the Chemical Industries Education and Training Authority is under investigation. He’s also not denying the reality that a Special Investigating Unit (SIU) probe, signed off by the President himself, is a serious matter.
Read more: Ramaphosa’s financial probe on Chieta’s irregular spending
What he takes issue with is the framing: that the entity he’s tried to reform is being painted with the same brush as its past – he is also at the end of his first term as CEO this year, with his future second term a board decision.
“I feel like we’ve done the work,” he says. “We’ve cleaned up... We’ve built new systems. We’ve put people first. So when this proclamation comes out and people think we’re still in the mess, I just ask: what more must we do?”
An inherited past, not lived reality
The SIU probe into alleged fraud and maladministration at Chieta covers the years 2016 to 2020. That’s before Pillay’s time. In fact, the very reason he says there was a delay in Chieta’s initial response to the probe was because no one currently at the helm even knew it was coming.
“We only saw the proclamation on social media, on Friday, 13 June,” Pillay says. “I didn’t know about it, our acting CEO before me didn’t know about it. We had to go digging.”
That dig eventually led them to a 2019 letter (which Daily Maverick has seen) sent by a previous CEO – Khathu Raakumba – actually requesting the SIU investigation, triggered by a forensic report.
“So the idea that we were being evasive? That we were hiding? It’s just not true. It was an oversight, not a cover-up.”
Worryingly, that letter and history of the investigation request weren’t noted in the handover to Pillay, or the acting interim CEO before him.
Best of a bad bunch?
“If you read the proclamation, it’s about investigating ‘any losses suffered by Chieta’. In other words, we might actually be the victims here. We’re cooperating to recover money, not to cover up misdeeds.”
One of Pillay’s most compelling rebuttals is his claim that Chieta is the best-performing Seta.
“For the 2023/24 financial year, we recorded zero irregular expenditure. Zero fruitless and wasteful spending. And that’s not us saying it. That’s the Auditor-General. Three of the past four years under our leadership have shown a declining trend in irregular spending.”
He’s even a little hurt by the criticism. “I mean, come on… three good years out of four for a public entity? That’s not bad. That’s something to celebrate.”
The Auditor-General reports back him up: no material deficiencies in internal controls, no fraud risks, no red flags on grants. Yet, he laments, those facts rarely make headlines.
Read more: MPs demand transparency over secretive Seta appointments panel
The R30.5m elephant in the room
Pillay is also quick to separate Chieta’s present operations from the past scandal involving R30.5-million in discretionary grants.
“That wasn’t in the SIU proclamation or its schedule,” he says. “It involved one official who left in 2018. We opened a case with the Commercial Crimes Unit in 2020. We did the right thing.”
He stresses that Chieta’s current discretionary grants process is not under investigation and has been cleared by the Auditor-General. “No issues noted. None.”
He instead wants to focus on the future, like Chieta’s flagship innovation: its Smart Skills Centres. “They’re our forward-facing strategy. They’re helping people. And that’s the tragedy… if this negative framing hurts our ability to expand them.”
The numbers are impressive: 74,742 beneficiaries supported, nearly 8,000 jobs created, and more than 33,000 rural youth given access to digital and AI literacy. All this at about R831 per learner.
“And we’ve got private sector backing us, too. PG Glass is partnering with us to open one (Smart Skills Centre) in Springs. But when stories paint us as dodgy, those partners get nervous.”
What the SIU probe actually covers:
- Scope: Financial years 2016-2020.
- Purpose: Investigate alleged fraud, corruption, and maladministration.
- Trigger: A 2019 forensic report by Chieta itself.
- Key individuals: Former employees, including one who left in 2018.
- Current leadership: Took office in 2020; not implicated.
- Cooperation: Chieta initiated the investigation and has opened criminal cases.
- Current status: No new findings of fraud or mismanagement under current leadership.
Further into the future
As for the road ahead? Pillay is betting on tech. Chieta’s “Fusion 2030 Strategy” aims to transform the Seta into an “AI-powered institution” with digital skills forecasting, automated grant systems and smarter occupational mapping.
“This is not a corrupt institution. This is a modern, impact-driven one. We’re trying to lead the way.”
He acknowledges the importance of the SIU’s work and says Chieta is cooperating fully. “We’ve moved on since then, and we’ve left this to the SIU to investigate.”
But he comes back to the same plea: judge them by their current actions, not the ghosts of their past.
“We’re not perfect,” Pillay concedes. “But we’re not who we used to be. And surely that counts for something.” DM