The government will take a leaf from Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal by hugely expanding its public works programme to create jobs, boost infrastructure and stimulate the economy.
The Mail & Guardian has learned that the plan, called the Massive Public Works Programme, is still at a conceptual stage and will be taken to January’s Cabinet lekgotla.
First mooted by President Thabo Mbeki in his state of the nation address in February and discussed at the Cabinet lekgotla three weeks ago, the programme will boost infrastructure with the construction and maintenance of amenities such as public pools, clinics and hospitals.
The programme is expected to be a catalyst for the construction industry, which in turn will buy material and supplies and hire labour.
The principle of using state funds to create socially beneficial work was pioneered in the United States in the 1930s as a response to the Great Depression.
South Africa’s community-based public works programme has been a modest affair so far, largely restricted to rural areas and administered by the minor Department of Public Works.
The Department of Provincial and Local Government also oversees a rural development programme, aimed at upgrading infrastructure in 12 nodes and an urban renewal programme that includes the upgrading of Johannesburg’s Alexandra township.
The public works approach has also been used in the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry’s Working for Water programme, which pays workers to remove alien vegetation from watercourses.
Lucky Mochalibane, spokesperson for the Department of Public Works, said the formulation of the Massive Public Works Programme was being driven by a cluster of departments including housing, health, transport and social development, headed by the Department of Local Government.
In documents released last week as a prelude to its national conference in December, the African National Congress identifies public works as a key ingredient in job creation.
The party notes that its 1997 congress in Mafikeng acknowledged the need to embrace “an expanded and more wide-ranging application of the principle of the national public works programme”.
“As unemployment remains the critical challenge facing us at present, we should consider how best … to combat [it] in all areas of our work, including the development of a major public works programme,” it says.
The party also emphasises the need for a holistic approach to development, favouring the use of labour-intensive construction methods that build capacity, use local service providers wherever possible and employ preferential procurement policies.
The department said that in 2001/02 the existing community-based programme, with a budget of R374-million, built 562 rural projects and created 25124 temporary jobs.
Minister of Public Works Stella Sigcau said last week that since November 2000 the department had helped establish 13 community centres engaged in small-scale agricultural production in seven provinces. With the collaboration of the government communications service, 14 multipurpose community centres had been built since 1999 and 61 would be built by next year.