certificates awarding function, Witrand Hospital Hall, Potchefstroom
23 March 2006
Programme Director
Representative of the Potchefstroom Local Municipality, Honourable Councillor
Eddie Modiakgotla
Head of the Department - Dr LK Sebego
Management of the Department
Leadership of the Organised Business Sector
Members of the Regional Management Team
Distinguished guests
Members of the Media
Ladies and Gentlemen
This auspicious occasion reminds me of what the icon of our liberation
struggle and our former President, Honourable Dr Nelson Mandela, once said, âWe
must use time creatively, and forever realise that the time is always ripe to
do the rightâ. Today we are here to recognise and applaud the determination and
achievements of the 304 beneficiaries who truly share Nelson Mandelaâs
assertion that the time is always ripe to do the right.
1
The Expanded Public Works Programme launched by President Thabo Mbeki on 18 May
2004, is one of the many government initiatives aimed at creating work
opportunities and improving the skills levels of our people. Its core
objectives are job creation, skills development and improved social services.
An important element of the programme is a large-scale expansion of the use of
labour intensive construction methods to build, upgrade and maintain the social
and economic infrastructure in all the underdeveloped rural and urban areas of
our country and province that do not have such infrastructure.
The programme is aimed at workers and the unemployed, particularly those who
are marginalised from the mainstream of our economy. In implementing 57
Expanded Public Works Programme projects in the Southern Region, 2687 job and
training opportunities were created. The certificates awarded earlier to the
beneficiaries bear testimony that the core objectives of the programme were
also realised.
As government we invested more than R1, 2 million over a period of six
months in the training of the 213 youth and 80 women. The skills and practical
training that they acquired during the renovation of public infrastructure in
Klerksdorp and Potchefstroom areas has increased the pool of much needed
skilled workers in the construction sector.
According to our EPWP third quarterly report, we have managed to create
provincially 13590 job and training opportunities and implemented 207 projects
thus far. As a department, we are convinced that to achieve Accelerated and
Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa (AsgiSA) goal of halving unemployment
and poverty by 2014, we will have to work more closely with women and the
youth.
On women we will focus on human resource training, ensuring they have access
to finance across the board; fast tracking them out of the Second Economy;
ensuring their significant participation beyond small, medium and micro
enterprises (SMMEs) and to improve their access to basic services; increase
their participation in Expanded Public Works Programme.
As Government, we have also committed ourselves to target unemployed
graduates for jobs or learnerships, which will also be part of the Second
Economy outside AsgiSA. As President Mbeki, said in his State of the Nation
Address: âwe shall ensure that the focus on youth development is intensified in
all spheres of governmentâ. I wish to congratulate all the beneficiaries for
using time creatively and for being part of a new Age of Hope, a new age of
shared destiny and shared growth.
I wish to congratulate the Regional Management Team of the Department,
stakeholders involved in the projects and the training providers for the
progress that has been made in putting together a viable set of EPWP projects
and joining the provincial and national effort to create jobs and fight
poverty. We are encouraged by the determination of the beneficiaries to
succeed. All of us as individuals and collectively can make a difference and
should contribute to give new content to our Age of Hope. Through our
collective effort we can make poverty history.
The time is always ripe to do right.
In conclusion I wish to echo the Presidentâs words that, it is up to all of
us, through our national effort, to do all the things that will ensure that the
mountains and the hills of our country break forth into singing before all our
people and the trees of the field clap their hands to applaud the peopleâs
season of joy.
Ke a leboga.
Issued by: Department of Public Works, North West Provincial
Government
23 March 2006
Source: North West Provincial Government (http://www.nwpg.gov.za)
