Government’s expanded public works programme (EPWP) has created more than 600 000 job opportunities in the 2010/11 financial year, the department of public works said on Tuesday.
Briefing Parliament’s portfolio committee on public works on progress made, the department’s acting chief operating officer, Butcher Matutle, said that 643 111 jobs had been created against a target of 642 000.
The EPWP was launched in April 2004 and aimed to provide poverty and income relief through temporary work for the unemployed.
The first phase of the programme was meant to help alleviate unemployment by creating at least one million work opportunities.
This target had been reached in 2008 and the second phase was then launched in April 2009. Phase two would try to grow the number of full time equivalent jobs from about 145 000 to over 300 000 a year.
“The second phase of the EPWP has created 1 268 975 work opportunities cumulatively since its launch in April 2009. This represents 28% of the target of the 4 500 000 work opportunities targeted by March 2014,” said Matutle.
He said that the work opportunities created so far by phase two was greater than the 1.1-million target that had been set for the end of the second year of phase two.
“This shows that the programme is on course to meet the 4 500 000 target by March 2014.”
The programme had exceeded it targets in all sectors besides the infrastructure sector — which had reached only 81% of its target — and the environmental sector, which had met 69% of the annual target.
The department was looking at ways to improve this.
Regarding youth, women and people with disabilities, the EPWP had slightly exceeded targets set for youth and women employment, but fell short against its target for people with disabilities.
It had only created 0.44% employment opportunities in the 2010/11 financial year for people with disabilities. The target was 2%.
Matutle said municipalities received technical support from the department to implement the programme. The number of municipalities currently supported stood at 217.
He said this figure would increase in the current financial year.
An incentive was also provided to provincial departments for infrastructure.
Only seven out of nine provinces had accessed this incentive.
Some R185.9-million had been paid out of the R330-million available.
Matutle said that the Northern Cape and North West provinces had not accessed any incentive allocations.
“Engagements have been made with the Northern Cape and North West provinces on implementing projects more labour-intensively to access the incentive.”
Matutle said that 868 000 work opportunities had already been created in the current financial year.
Some 3 000 youth had been recruited and 30 000 beneficiaries had been identified for training, he said. — Sapa