responds to the questions and other issues of concern raised by members of the
public during the National Council of Provinces (NCOP) visit to Parys, Ngwathe
Local Municipality, Free State
9 November 2006
The vision of the South African government is to build a united, free,
non-racial and non-sexist society living peacefully in a prosperous country.
Poverty however, continues to pose a challenge on our way to achieve that
vision. Although unemployment alone does not constitute poverty, lack of job
opportunities can accentuate a situation where people find themselves living in
poverty with no access to water, shelter, basic services, education, health,
infrastructure and essential government services.
Most people in South Africa and the world live in poverty because of the
above conditions. But wars, corruption, and poor governance can make people
poor. Everyday we pledge solidarity with the peoples of Darfur, Lebanon,
Palestine, Iraq, and the Afghanistan, who are left destitute and poor by
selfish acts of aggression.
In South Africa, the system of apartheid and its wars left most of our
people in poverty. The issues of service delivery which had been raised in this
forum are by and large historical legacies which could be made worse by our
lack of capacity, poor management, corruption and lack of dedication.
Otherwise, how does one begin to explain the differences in the quality of
life between suburbs and townships? Just down the road to Tumahole, the legacy
of apartheid becomes discernible:
No hospital, no recreational facilities, only one community hall, two small
clinics often insufficiently equipped, a dilapidated taxi rank which lacks
proper shelters, a small library without enough learning/reading material
No cemetery / graveyard, making people to rely on Parys and Schokenville
cemeteries. Many of our workforces who cannot be absorbed by industrial sites
of Sasolburg, Vanderbijlpark and Vereeniging, found themselves at the mercy of
the local retail and tourism industries, given the number of lodges and other
holiday infrastructure in the area.
The question is what do we do? What is the role of government in promoting
job creation? Let me remind you that government is already the biggest employer
in South Africa, with over 1,2 million people on its payroll.
At the same time government has an obligation to the electorate to work with
the civil society including business and labour, to create conditions necessary
for economic growth and therefore job-creation. To this end, government has
meaningfully participated in the Growth and Development Summits and made a
pledge to intervene to help those still outside of the formal employment.
At the last Growth and Development Summit (2003), government presented the
concept of Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP) as its contribution to
poverty alleviation through job creation and skills development. EPWP was
launched by the President in 2004.
EPWP is one of the many interventions by government to alleviate poverty,
include:
* free basic service
* free houses
* social grants
* abolition of school fees
* subsided school transport and school nutrition scheme
* lowering of and eventually scrapping of income tax for low income
earners
* free primary healthcare for children and pregnant women.
With EPWP, government acknowledges that millions of rands are spent everyday
to procure goods and services, rightly so. The EPWP however, challenges all
spheres of government to identify labour-intensive alternatives in the
procurement of goods and services. For example, because housing development is
already labour-intensive, government says during housing construction, the
municipality should use labour instead of machinery to dig trenches and lay
pipes (civil engineering).
The same methods can be applied to build, repair and maintain our road
network, manage our environment and take care of our terminally sick, hence
EPWP has four sectors:
1. Infrastructure â roads, civil engineering, maintenance of public
buildings, construction projects etc.
2. Social â formalising the many Early Childhood Development centres in our
communities thereby creating jobs, paying volunteers a stipend and encouraging
them to administer drugs, do public awareness campaigns and provide counselling
for families and individuals affected by diseases.
3. Environment and Culture â The Ngwathe Municipality can identify cleaning and
greening projects to beautify Tumahole and its surrounding areas. More dumping
sites can be rehabilitated, turned into recreational areas, complete with
equipment for the development of our children.
4. Economic Sector â Again here the Municipality can assist and develop willing
and able young entrepreneurs to become job creators, harnessing the strength of
Parys as a holiday destination.
As government, we are confident that EPWP can work. In the last financial
year (2005/06), the Programme created 26 756 job opportunities in Free State
alone.
This year, the Province has already spent R24 million of its R54 million to
implement 177 EPWP projects. About 2 987 job opportunities were created in the
first quarter of this financial year, of which 66% were youth and 70% women.
Government's confidence in the EPWP is underpinned by the recent Cabinet
Lekgotlas and their decisions to:
* massify the scale and application of EPWP
* improve capacity to spend on infrastructure at all levels
* enforce EPWP guidelines on all infrastructure projects
Our biggest challenge as a leading department that drives EPWP is to ensure
that:
* All spheres of government and parastatals embrace the EPWP
* Local municipalities, given their proximity to the communities they serve,
are in the forefront of promoting EPWP guidelines, namely labour-intensive
alternatives of procuring goods and services
* The community has a clear idea about the existence of an EPWP Office in their
midst, the contact people and their details and the processes involved in the
recruitment, selection, training and exit of recruits.
* The community needs also to remember that not all municipal projects are
amiable to EPWP guidelines.
Some may still require a degree of use of machinery and other equipment. Let
us persevere and show understanding.
I thank you.
Issued by: Department of Public Works
9 November 2006
Source: Department of Public Works (http://www.publicworks.gov.za)
