acknowledges inputs of the community during the imbizo visit to Mpumalanga,
Umjindini Community Hall, outside Barberton
26 April 2006
The MEC for Public Works, Ms Candith Mashego-Dlamini,
The Executive Mayor of Umjindi Municipality, Councillor Richard Lukhele,
All other councillors,
Senior management,
The communities of Umjindi Municipality,
Ladies and gentlemen:
On behalf of the national government, I want to acknowledge all the inputs
this morning. We stand here today as your government, your elected
representatives, to demonstrate our willingness to work with our communities to
find lasting solutions to poverty and improved service delivery. We thank you
for your views, suggestions and other important ideas.
The idea is not to sound nor appear defensive otherwise such an action might
make a mockery of the purpose of our being here. I want you to know that your
pleas have been registered and your concerns noted all of which will receive
the attention of government.
If we were to work like this most of the time we can achieve more than we
already had to date. In the last 10 to 12 years the relationship and therefore
the co-operation between the different spheres of government has matured.
Government has committed to improving the capacity and the ability of the
municipalities to do even more.
Since 1994, the national Department of Public Works has worked with the
local government to bring about poverty alleviation initiatives. Often the
facilitation was done by the provincial government. We launched the Community
Based Public Works Programme (CBPWP) to build community owned infrastructure
projects as part of poverty alleviation in that year. When we discontinued the
programme in 2004, CBPWP had invested R2,2 billion to build 4 000
infrastructure projects in seven of the nine provinces including
Mpumalanga.
Between 1994 and 2004, Mpumalanga was allocated R159 million and the money
was used to build 337 projects in Nkangala, Gert Sibande and Ehlanzeni district
municipalities. As a result 3 816 jobs were created of which 2 000 were in
Ehlanzeni. We have built projects at among others Graskop, Tonga, Nsikazi and
here at Barberton. The taxi ranks here in Extension Eleven and the market
stalls were as a result of that co-operation with the local municipality.
In May 2004, President Thabo Mbeki launched the Expanded Public Works
Programme (EPWP) with an explicit purpose to:
i) create at least one million jobs
ii) improve the skills base of our workforce through accredited skills
development interventions
iii) bring essential services to our communities as part of service delivery
improvement and poverty alleviation.
To date the EPWP has exceeded our expectations. By the end of the first year
of the existence of the programme it had expended more than R3 billion of its
budget and had generated in excess of 223 000 jobs against the first year
target of 150 000 jobs. More than 2 000 contractors and other venture
learnerships had been created ensuring that a new breed of future employers is
born.
In the Mpumalanga province alone R254 million had been invested in the
programme since its inception to execute 1 476 projects resulting in over 23
300 job opportunities. Judging by the standard of the R3 million EPWP road
project which the MEC opened this morning, one can safely conclude that the
effects of EPWP on service delivery are noticeable.
We shall continue to communicate with other spheres of government
particularly the local government to encourage them to embrace the EPWP and
adopt its guidelines in their procurement of public services. This in essence
means that local government should seek to use labour intensive technologies
and methods more often to procure services and infrastructure meanwhile
employing many of our people.
I want to thank you all and call on each and everyone to make it their
citizen duty to familiarise themselves with the work of government and the
impact of its policies and programmes on your life.
Issued by: Department of Public Works
26 April 2006
