Public works' million-job target
28 May 2004
The government's flagship job-creation project, the Extended Public Works Programme (EPWP), which will see between R15-billion and R20-billion pumped into South Africa's economy over the next five years, has officially been launched.
The programme, launched at Sikhunyane village in Limpopo last week by President Thabo Mbeki, aims to employ a million people by 2010.
The EPWP is a labour-intensive programme aimed at promoting economic growth and sustainable development by offering people part-time jobs while they gain various skills.
Through the EPWP, employment opportunities will be created in government-funded infrastructure projects, environmental and cultural programmes, and social programmes involving home-based care and early childhood development.
"The centre-piece of the EPWP is a large-scale programme of using labour-intensive methods to upgrade rural and municipal roads, municipal pipelines, storm-water drains and paving, as
well as fencing of roads, community water supply and sanitation, maintenance of government buildings, housing, schools and clinics, rail and port infrastructure, electrification infrastructure, and so on", Mbeki said after the Cabinet approved the programme in 2003.
According to EPWP coordinator Shaun Phillips, the programme will spend at least R15-billion on labour-intensive jobs over the next five years. This, he said, would
translate into the building of 37 000km of roads, 31 000km of pipelines, 1 500km of stormwater drains and 150km of urban sidewalks.
Tying in with existing programmes
The EPWP will tie in with various existing poverty relief programmes, including the Land Care, Faranani-Pushing Back the Frontiers of Poverty, People and Parks, Coastal Care, Sustainable Land-based Livelihoods, Cleaning up South Africa, and Growing A Tourism Economy programmes.
Mbeki cited the highly successful Working For Water and allied
programmes - Working on Fire and Working for Wetlands - as examples of projects that would sustain the EPWP.
The Working on Fire Programme operates on a budget of about R30-million and has over 300 projects around the country, providing work and training opportunities to some 21 000 people.
The programme launched in Limpopo last week is modelled on the "Zibambele" programme initiated by the KwaZulu-Natal department of transport in 2000. Zibambele maintains the province's rural road network while providing poor rural households with a regular income.
Households working on the Zibambele programme receive R334 for eight days' work a month to maintain a length of road to an agreed standard. In 2002/2003 there were approximately 10 000 Zibambele contractors maintaining approximately one-third of KwaZulu-Natal's rural road network.
The Limpopo Government has named its own rural road rehabilitation project "Gundo Lashu", TshiVenda for "Our Victory".
Over 200
people in the Sikhunyane community in the former homeland of Gazankulu are already employed in the programme that will link their village up with the outside world.
Mbeki, speaking at the launch of Gundo Lashu, said the success of the programme would depend on strong partnerships between the government, labour, business and communities.
The programme, Mbeki said, focused on the unemployed, particularly those who were marginalised from the mainstream of the economy. "We want workers to gain skills while they are employed and increase their capacity to continue working elsewhere once they leave the programme", he said.
Although funded through the department of public works, the EPWP will involve all spheres of government and state-owned enterprises - and will also look to the private sector for additional support.
Mbeki, in his State of the Nation address to Parliament on 21 May, said the EPWP would be launched in all provinces by September, concentrating on 21
urban and rural areas identified as needing urgent development.
Source: BuaNews
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