Creating jobs, fighting fires
Seshoane Masitha
6 February 2004
Water Affairs and Forestry Minister Ronnie Kasrils has launched a national programme to bring wild fires under control - and to create employment and training for young South Africans.
Called Working on Fire, the programme aims to create eight pilot fire-fighting regions in Mpumalanga, KwaZulu-Natal, Free State, Limpopo, Southern Cape, Western Cape and Eastern Cape.
Kasrils said the programme, part of the government's expanded public works programme, would recruit unemployed people from previously disadvantaged backgrounds, and provide them with skills.
"We have done that with clearing invasive vegetation, including training them in fire-fighting techniques as part of government's poverty reduction strategy," the minister said.
Working on Fire follows on the success of the government's Working for Water programme, which has created 20 000 jobs a year in clearing alien vegetation.
The government has invested R24-million from
the Working for Water budget into Working on Fire, and an additional R35-million for the 2004/2005 financial year.
Kasrils said the first batch of 22 youths from Khayelitsha in Cape Town have already completed training in basic fire-fighting, helicopter procedures and fire prevention.
The youths are currently based at the Newlands Forest Station, where they are always on standby to assist in combating wild and shack fires, including the removal of alien invasive plants.
"We need to have these fire-fighters in every province in the country, linked with volunteer fire-prevention associations", Kasrils said.
Chris Austin, national programme manager for Working on Fire, said Khayelitsha's newly trained fire-fighters would be employed for 12 months.
"Nationally we will have 880 fire-fighters recruited from previously disadvantaged areas, and in the Western and Southern Cape we will recruit 132 each by the end of April", Austin said.
Working on Fire was
developed by the Working for Water programme, the forestry division of the department of water affairs and forestry, and the national disaster management unit in the department of provincial and local government.
The government has also established the Ukuvuka Campaign in partnership with the City of Cape Town, the Western Cape provincial government, Cape Nature Conservation and South African National Parks.
The campaign, established in 2000 following the devastating fires that ravaged Table Mountain, deals mainly with clearing alien vegetation in mountain areas to prevent mudslides during floods and fight fires in informal settlements.
Source: BuaNews
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