Our presence as the Department of Public Works is intended to assist the Eastern Cape Province for the smooth implementation of EPWP phase two and information sharing EPWP phase two should operate. EPWP is government wide flagship programme and is implemented across spheres of government.
Within the spirit of cooperative governance as enshrined in chapter three of the Constitution as well as the provisions of Intergovernmental Governance Framework Act, 2005, the Department of Public Works will ensure that the Eastern Cape province contribute significantly to the national targets of creating 4,5 million job opportunities by 2014.
As a department, we are guided by both National Economic Development and Labour Council (NEDLAC) framework agreement which endorsed the mass mobilisation of EPWP on one hand and announcement of R787 billion budget by then Minister of Finance, Trevor Manuel in the medium term across the spheres of government. The global economic crisis has obviously deepened our unemployment crisis, with many people losing their jobs. This has made EPWP interventions to address the challenges of unemployment even more relevant.
To this end President Jacob G Zuma announced, in his state of the nation address, the acceleration of EPWP targets for the 1st year. The EPWP will therefore create 500 000 work opportunities in the first nine months of its implementation by December 2009. The allocation of R4,1 billion in the medium term expenditure framework of government has been introduced as a fiscal incentive to support infrastructure projects funded by provinces and municipalities to create additional work opportunities.
In addition the fiscal incentive will be rolled out to support targeted non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and the Community Work programme in creating work. Protocol agreements with clear targets for each province and municipality clarifying their contributions towards the creation of the 4,5 million work opportunities should be signed with all premiers and municipal managers. A political process to ensure that all political heads take responsibility for their respective EPWP targets will be critical to ensure these ambitious targets are met.
EPWP phase will be implemented across infrastructure, social, economic and non-state sectors. The non-state sector is a new innovation for EPWP phase two. As a result, the department has appointed Independent Development Trust (IDT) as an intermediary for this sector. We appeal for the province to give the political leadership for this entity, particularly the MEC responsible for Public Works.
The following aspects are critical in the mass mobilisation of EPWP phase two:
* Creation of labour intensive service delivery within the departmental projects through identifiable elements of the EPWP
* Identification of projects that could be registered as EPWP
* Engage the public opinion makers on their misgivings on the targets set for job creation through EPWP
* Provinces and municipalities to capitalise on the incentives for the creation of EPWP labour intensive jobs in the programme
* Creativity on the creation of a variety of sustainable jobs to qualify and amongst those identified in other province some of them are; waste management, beach patrol, beach cleaning, etc.
* All the government construction funded projects there must be a labour intensive aspect
* Each line function ministry to asses and identify what money is available to be used in the labour intensive approach on its spending
* Noting that the non state sector is also part of the programme and they also qualify for the incentives as enshrined in the programme.
Issued by: Department of Public Works
2 September 2009
Source: Department of Public Works (http://www.publicworks.gov.za/)
