Two consecutive National Skills Fund (NSF) annual reports have painted a consistent and worrying picture of lack of accountability in how public funds are spent on aviation training. In both reporting periods, for 2023-24 and 2024-25, the NSF acknowledges discretionary grant funding for aviation-related skills development, including projects run by entities such as Flyfofa Aviation Solutions, Vukani Aviation CC and the Deloitte-Ukhubhaba Consortium. However, the reports point to a striking continuity of disclosure failures preventing the public from assessing whether these projects delivered value for money or meaningful skills outcomes.
There are no approval dates, no fund distribution schedules and no clear indication of whether projects were newly approved, rolled over, delayed, or completed. Aviation projects are instead absorbed into aggregated discretionary grant reporting, obscuring how much public funding individual entities received and over what period. Critically, both reports fail to disclose learner-level data, with no confirmation of how many trainees enrolled in aviation programmes or how many completed the training.
Aviation expert Phuthego Mojapele said unlike many other skills programmes, aviation required specialised equipment, licensed instructors and compliance with safety and regulatory standards. Yet neither report indicated whether funded projects met regulatory requirements, were audited or were evaluated for performance. “The NSF has been found wanting in terms of reporting and accountability.
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Their reports have been inconsistent and inadequate. “These are public funds and there must be a level of accountability as to how much was disbursed and how it was spent,” he said. The NSF does acknowledge systemic governance weaknesses across its portfolio, including delayed project close-outs, incomplete reporting by implementing agents and weaknesses in monitoring and evaluation.
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