during the launch of the Masakhâisizwe Project in Cape Town
13 February 2006
Mr Programme Director
Premier of the Western Cape, Mr Ebrahim Rasool
MEC for Public Works, Roads and Transport Mr Marius Fransman
I would first of all like to thank the MEC of Public Works in the Western
Cape, Mr Fransman, and the provincial Cabinet under the leadership of Premier
Rasool for providing the platform for me to address you this evening.
I am even more thrilled because I have been asked to speak during an
occasion for the granting of bursaries to deserving students of the Western
Cape. This in particular makes me happy because having worked as a teacher
myself and coming from the rural area of the Eastern Cape, I attach particular
significance to empowerment through education.
In his State of the Nation Address on 3 February this year President Thabo
Mbeki envisaged a new era for South Africa â an Age of Hope. The Age of Hope is
today able to dawn because of the years of hard work that the government,
together with the people of South Africa, has put in over the years.
It is pleasing, as President Mbeki notes that this optimism is not only
shared by members of Cabinet, but it is increasingly shared by the private
sector and ordinary members of our society. Various opinion surveys affirm the
fact that the people of South Africa are âconvinced that we have created the
necessary conditions to achieve more rapid progress towards the realisation of
their dreams.â
One of governmentâs most visible programmes, the Expanded Public Works
Programme (EPWP) which aims at addressing the challenges of job creation and
the eradication of poverty, is anchored on that dream. This dream is shared by
the recipients of tonightâs bursaries. This dream - of a life which is better
tomorrow, than it was yesterday - is shared by the masses of our people
wherever they may be in this country of ours.
You will have already noticed that tonight I am going to be using the
following words quite a few times: âSharedâ and âHopeâ. I will speak of the
hope of Antoine De Saint-Exupery who has this to add to our understanding of
the human condition: âIf you want to build a ship, donât herd people together
to collect wood and donât assign tasks and work, rather teach them to long for
the endless immensity of the seaâ.
In the words of Nobel Prize winner Arundhati Roy, âNot only is another world
possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathingâ.
Greek philosopher Aristotleâs understanding of sharing, as it relates to the
business of government is appropriate in this regard: âIf liberty and equality,
as is thought by some, are chiefly to be found in democracy, they will be best
attained when all persons alike share in government to the utmostâ.
Over the next eight years the hopes and aspirations of our people may rest
on the success of the Accelerated Shared Growth Initiative of South Africa
(ASGISA) under the leadership of Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka. I
will explain why this burden may be placed on this programme.
While the country has experienced an economic boom which is unprecedented in
the countryâs recent history, this average 4% growth is still limited to a few.
In other words it is not shared. For growth to be shared it must continue to
rise on average every year. We think as government the magic number is 4.5% up
to 2010 and 6% thereafter. All things being equal, we are on course to achieve
this, a long term goal which will help us halve current unemployment rates by
50% in 2014.
But there are several impediments on the way, which ASGISA has identified
for isolation and removal. In seeking to do this, ASGISA will rally all sectors
of South Africa in a way that has never been done before in order to pull in
one direction for the betterment of the lives of all.
The binding constraints are the following:
* The volatility of the currency which is affecting our ability to take
advantage of the import and export market.
* The cost, efficiency and capacity of the national logistics system and the
way it escalates the cost of moving goods, the price of goods and foreign
direct investment.
* Skills, plus the geographical location of labour in relation to capital, a
legacy of apartheid which we are addressing through our social policy.
* Deficiencies in state organisation, capacity and leadership.
We cannot do much in the short term about the volatility of the rand. We can
however do something about the cost of logistics in our economy. We can also
positively affect our capacity at public and private sector level by improving
the skills base. These, among others are the constraints which stand in the way
of sustained economic growth, and therefore have the potential to inhibit our
dream of a shared growth going forward. These are some of the issues we will
have to address in order to deal decisively with the gap between the First and
Second Economy. This is why ASGISA will seize our imagination in the years to
come.
President Mbeki has warned of the persistence of chronic poverty in the
midst of wealth and economic growth. As measured by the Gini Coefficient, South
Africa has one of the most skewed distributions of wealth in the world. This is
worse than Nigeria, Brazil and India. In South Africa the top 10% of income
earners receive 65% of the total income while the bottom 10% receives only 3%
of the total income. Back in 2003, in the ten year Review, President Mbeki drew
attention to the existence of âtwo economiesâ:
Under ASGISA, the EPWP, a transversal and successful programme of government
has demonstrated how we can deal with some of the above challenges. In the end
several issues of inter sphere co-ordination and targeted skills development
are being addressed. This in turn through the adoption of best practices,
impacts positively on the capacity of government to deliver projects on a cost
effective basis.
The EPWP was implemented in 2004 to refocus government expenditure on goods
and services towards job creation and skills development. To date the EPWP has
been surpassing all employment creation targets with more than 220 000 work
opportunities created in the first year and an additional 60 000 in the first
quarter of the second year.
With 31 provincial departments and municipalities signing Memoranda of
Understanding (MOU) with the Department of Public Works (DPW) and Construction
Education Training Authority (CETA), the Vukâuphile Learnership Programme has
grown rapidly from the initial target of 500 learnerships to 1971 learnerships.
We are planning 3000 learnerships over the next four to five years.
Learners will execute R3 billion worth of provincial and municipal EPWP
infrastructure projects as their training projects thus creating approximately
150 000 work opportunities. We have estimated that provincial and municipal
expenditure on labour-intensive projects could sustain over 3000 specialist
labour-intensive contactors over the long-term.
Because of the ability of the road construction and road maintenance sector
of our infrastructure delivery programme to absorb and spend their budget, the
South African government has identified these sectors to lead on up scaled EPWP
in an effort to massify its impact.
Consequently the Cabinet endorsed at the last two Lekgotlas (July 2005 and
January 2006) that the scale and impact of the EPWP be increased, meaning that
job opportunities be created on a greater scale.
We will do this in two ways. The first is by increasing the number of more
labour intensive programmes and seeking ways for more funding. We have already
been granted R4.5billion for this purpose. We will use this additional funding
on labour intensive road construction, rehabilitation and maintenance under the
EPWP over the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) from 2006 to 2007.
I am pleased to say that this amount will result in 145 000- 160 000
additional work opportunities over the period. This will also result in the
construction of 3000 km new low volume roads. This will result in the
maintenance of approximately 50 000 km of existing roads, thus improving the
quality of the overall road network. At a social impact level the roads will
improve access to clinics, economic opportunities, schools, clinics and other
government services and local economic development.
Provinces will have to submit projects on which these funds will be spent.
The submissions will be assessed by a joint committee consisting of Department
of Transport, EPWP Unit in Department of Public Works and National Treasury.
One of the requirements for allocation will be that the projects are larger
than R30million to increase the scale and impact.
Let me illustrate why this is so. An expenditure of R100 million through 50
separate projects with an average value of R2 million requires far more
government management capacity than expenditure of R100 million through a
single project. It requires 50 separate tender processes, processing of 50
separate invoices on a monthly basis etc. I have concluded that the
predominance of small projects thus further compounds the shortage of capacity
in government to manage increasing infrastructure budgets.
In addition bigger projects act as incentive to attract the investment of
the private sector as many companies perceive them to be more profitable. The
benefits for these public private partnerships are immense, including skills
transfer, black economic empowerment, small enterprise development and
nation-building.
This specific intervention by the DPW is part of the broader ASGISA and is
but one programme that seeks to aid the push towards a shared growth in this
country. You will know that in other parts of the economy the government has
committed R372 billion to accelerated infrastructure investment in
underdeveloped and rural areas of our country. This includes the provision of:
roads and rail; water; energy; housing, schools and clinics; business premises
and business support centres; sports facilities; and, multi-purpose government
service centres, including police stations and courts.
On the broader skills levels we recognise the crisis in our sector as
germane to the challenges we face in the built environment. For example, the
total number of registered engineers declined from 15530 in 1998 to 14900 in
2004. The resultant ratio of citizens per engineer is 2923 as compared to 184
in Australia and 220 in the UK. In South Africa there are 3.9 registered
quantity surveyors per 100 000 population compared to 35 per 100 000 in the
UK.
As cause and effect of this, in Local Government there are between 400 and
500 vacancies for built environment professionals. A survey being conducted at
present is pointing to some 800 vacancies for built environment professionals
at all levels within national and provincial government.
According to the Engineering Council of South Africa, some 500 â 800
engineers will be retiring annually from 2009 onwards. This exceeds the numbers
who are currently graduating and to make matters worse, a very large percentage
of current graduates are emigrating. In 2001 more than 90% of graduates
emigrated.
I therefore commend the Provincial Government of the Western Cape for
setting up a Cabinet Scarce Skills committee. I want to especially congratulate
the Department of Transport and local government for dramatically upscaling the
number of bursaries being offered for the built environment fields â from 10
per annum to a targeted 250 per annum. I understand that youâre offering
bursaries to 130 learners this year!
To you young people who have been awarded bursaries for this year, I want to
say that you have been given a wonderful opportunity to contribute to growing
our economy. Make South Africa a country for all those who live in it where no
one will go hungry.
I am pleased to see so many parents here tonight. Parents, you can be justly
proud of your children, who have been chosen from over 800 applicants. Each and
every one of you has an important role to play in supporting your child during
her/his studies. I am pleased that the department, in recognition of the
important role of parents and guardians has invited you to the bursary award
ceremony which is also the launch of the MasakhâiSizwe project.
This project has truly wonderful vision, namely, to develop a cadre of
ânation buildersâ who are committed to building a non-racial, democratic and
just society. The bursary opportunity is therefore far more than a study and
job opportunity. Seize it with both hands and see it as an opportunity to make
a major contribution to the âAge of Hopeâ that our President spoke of in his
State of the Nation address. It is time to play your part.
I wish you well in your studies and the future. To end may I say the
following: Life does not consist of the wrong cards that ones has been handed,
it consists of oneâs ability to hope that in there could be born a better
tomorrow.
This will happen when the have-nots of the past are lifted enough by the
prospects of a better future, to believe in the present. I have no doubt that
this will happen because those who are yet to benefit qualitatively from our
1994 political settlement know that their turn is around the corner. Welcome to
the Age of Hope.
Thank You.
Issued by: Department of Public Works
13 February 2006
Source: Department of Public Works (http://www.publicworks.gov.za/)
