27 August 2007

By Emily Visser

MORE than 25 000 jobs were created by the City's Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP) over the last financial year, amounting to almost 800 000 person days of work for the unemployed. This is according to the City's latest EPWP report, for the year ending July 2007.

Of these, over 6 000 jobs were created for youths (26 percent) and almost 4 000 jobs were created for women (14 percent); 14 disabled people (0,06 percent) were employed. The three groups are the main targets of the programme and the City aims for 40 percent of the beneficiaries to be women, 30 percent youngsters and two percent disabled people.

The programme works to create jobs for unemployed and unskilled people. More than R9-million was spent on 137 projects by the City in the last financial year. The EPWP is in its third year and is applied across all City entities, companies and departments. It is driven by specially appointed EPWP champions in each sector, and all sectors are required to target the unskilled and unemployed through labour intensive projects.

The sectors are infrastructure; economic; environment and culture; and social. So far, most of the jobs have been created in the infrastructure sector. On average, workers are employed for three months per job and receive a minimum wage of R30 a day in the social sector and R60 a day in the other three sectors.

A national government initiative, the EPWP requires all state organs, provincial governments and municipalities to undertake projects that provide or create jobs, and to give training.

"The programme involves creating work opportunities for the unemployed, thus ensuring that workers gain skills and on-the-job training to increase their chances of earning an income," says Lulama Ndlovu, the EPWP programme manager at the City.

It has set itself a target of creating 117 500 jobs by 2009 through the EPWP. The department of health was one of the biggest job creators in this period, providing 10 500 jobs through its measles and polio immunisation campaigns.

Johannesburg Roads Agency (JRA), Joburg Water, City Power and City Parks also contributed to the programme, running a number of infrastructure upgrading projects. These included tarring gravel roads, installing water and sanitation facilities in informal settlements, laying electrical cables and landscaping.

Operation Gcin'amanzi in Soweto provided jobs for almost 6 000 unskilled labourers. Other big projects were the first phase of the rehabilitation of Orlando Stadium, where more than 1 500 labourers were employed, and water and sanitation projects in informal settlements, where over a thousand local people were given jobs.

Bharat Gulab, Joburg Water's investment manager and EPWP co-ordinator, says the company is committed to the programme. "All our capital projects are EPWP aligned."

And where possible, the company uses only local, unemployed labour to do upgrades to its infrastructure.

Likewise, City Parks had aligned its tender documents to the EPWP and had created 929 jobs, the report noted. Projects included landscaping and planting trees and creating pathways at parks around the city.

JRA and Joburg Water have gone a step further and have appointed permanent champions to run their EPWP projects. In the 2006-07 financial year, JRA had 26 EPWP projects, creating 862 jobs.

Projects have to be coupled with training, giving people the opportunity to get out of the poverty pool permanently. Training is provided free of charge by the Department of Labour, provided beneficiaries are employed in a project.

The number of people who received accredited training during this period was 2 600. Ndlovu says this number does not include some of the unaccredited training that takes place on site and that should have formed part of the report.

"A lot of underreporting takes place because of champions [within departments and entities] changing continuously." Job creation and training initiatives are in place in all City departments and entities but proper reporting still needs attention, she says.

Gulab explains that tight time-lines on some projects mean that accredited training cannot always take place. Instead, workers receive unaccredited training on the job. Ndlovu adds that registration for training at the Department of Labour can be extensive and time consuming.

The report, however, pointed out that not all jobs created in this period complied with all EPWP requirements.

Joburg also runs a contractor/entrepreneur development programme as part of its EPWP, called Vukuphile Learnership. It aims to increase people's ability to earn a living once they have completed training.

Training lasts two years and consists of structured classroom training and workplace experience. After successfully completing the training, learners are fully fledged contractors.

The City has 16 infrastructure learnership contractors involved in training, of which 12 are engaged in projects, including in Bryanston and Morningside involving water upgrades, construction of gabions at Delta Park and construction of footways in Soweto and at Alexandra cemetery.

These projects also employed an additional 202 unemployed people, who received five days of life skills training through the Department of Labour. Joburg hopes to extend the learnership programmes to the other sectors.

EPWP projects are funded through existing capital and operational budgets. In addition, the City can apply for a municipal infrastructure grant. These are subject to a number of conditions, of which poverty alleviation is a key requirement. Municipalities are allocated grants on the basis of past performance in implementing the EPWP.

For the first time since the EPWP was launched three years ago, the City's report was accepted by the national Department of Public Works, which oversees and drives the programme countrywide. All state organs, provincial governments and municipalities have to compile quarterly reports on the status of their EPWP projects.

"It is a call from the national government and the president to eliminate poverty, give people [job] experiences and employment opportunities," Ndlovu confirmed, adding that she hopes to see City departments and entities working closer together on future EPWP projects.

Its EPWP office will be moved to the economic development department and a new steering committee will be installed in the near future. The national goal is to create 1 million jobs in South Africa between 2004 and 2009. Of this, at least 40 percent must be for women, 30 percent for youths - aged between 18 and 35 - and two percent for disabled people.

President Thabo Mbeki made the EPWP a presidential priority in his State of the Nation speech in February 2003. During that address, Mbeki said the aim of the programme was to invest in the country's social infrastructure by drawing "significant numbers of the unemployed into productive work".

Source: joburg.org.za