24 January 2008
South Africa is to host a team of 51 technical experts from Cuba for a period of three years, during which they will be placed around the country to provide their expertise for various public works projects.
According to the Department of Public Works, the initiative is in response to the growing public sector demand for infrastructure procurement and delivery under the Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa (Asgi-SA), which aims to achieve a 6% annual economic growth rate by 2010 and to halve poverty and unemployment by 2014.
Once in the country, the Cuban professionals will be deployed to the various provincial Departments of Public Works for three years, to help alleviate the shortage of skills in the built environment sector.
The decision to invite the technical advisors follows a professional skills audit by the Department of Public Works, after which South African and Cuban officials signed a cooperation agreement at the conclusion of the SA-Cuba joint commission for economic, scientific, technical and trade cooperation in November.
Regarding their long-established co-operation in the health sector, the parties at the November meeting agreed to continue the level of co-operation with the current number of Cuban professionals in South Africa, without an increase in numbers or replacements.
This excludes the 24 professors already approved to work for the faculty of medicine at Walter Sisulu University in the Eastern Cape province.
In addition to the already approved scholarships for undergraduates, both South Africa and Cuba also agreed to explore further co-operation in the new programme to train medical doctors at community level in South Africa.
Source: BuaNews
