Gauteng MEC for Infrastructure Development Nandi Mayathula-Khoza with Thelle Mogoerane Hospital
The Gauteng department of infrastructure development’s annual budget was tabled by MEC Nandi Mayathula-Khoza on Tuesday.
She said: “This budget encapsulates the wishes of the Gauteng people and it is our contribution to the execution of transformation, modernisation and re-industrialisation programme of the Gauteng City Region (GCR), which has been found to be very much in line with the National Development Plan by Minister Jeff Radebe of the Presidency when he attended the Gauteng Executive Council Lekgotla last month, led by Premier David Makhura.”
The department’s budget has increased by 8% from R1.9-billion to R2.05-billion and is broken down into R437.8-million for administration, R1.2-billion for public works infrastructure and R368.8-million for the Expanded Public Works Programme. “Over and above this budget, we will also implement capital projects for client departments with a total budget of R3.7-billion,” Mayathula-Khoza said.
“This budget has increased from the previous financial year, demonstrating confidence in the department’s improved performance, especially from the ‘big budget departments’ such as the departments of health (R1.3-billion), education (R2.2-billion), social development (R85-million) and R103-million for heritage infrastructure,” she said.
The department stressed the importance of improving delivery of projects from relatively smaller budget client departments such as the Gauteng department of agriculture and rural development (R7.9-million) and the Gauteng department of roads and transport (R5.7-million). The public works infrastructure projects from these departments are equally important.
She also quoted Makhura’s budget vote speech last Thursday to underscore the improved confidence in the department of infrastructure development’s ability to deliver. He said: “The GDID has increased its technical capacity and this has led to a major turnaround in spending and delivery of infrastructure projects such that 99% of our infrastructure budgets were spent by the end of March 2015” .
The department also takes seriously what the premier said about the historic poor performance of the department and it has turned around its history of poor performance. “It’s not easy but we are hard at work to bring about a new performance culture in the department. There’s light at the end of the tunnel. Those who have eyes can see. We pity those who want to dwell in the past with a pessimistic approach.”
This does not mean there are no challenges — “there are, but what is important is to address these head on”.
One of the historic poor performance that is of concern to her is the Suikerbosrand project, that has taken many years to be completed and has negatively affected the operation of the nature reserve. There is a plan to bring the project to completion by end August. The two departments and MECs are in discussion on this matter and will decide on the way forward.
The department’s vision, remains that of becoming “a leading sustainable infrastructure provider and facilitator that positions Gauteng as a globally competitive City Region contributing to inclusive economic growth and decent work for all”.
To achieve this vision and to contribute to the Gauteng City Region Transformation, Modernisation and Re-industrialisation (TMR) vision, the department has a five-year strategy with six strategic goals that have been integrated with the TMR programme to guide our implementation. The goals are sustainable infrastructure, accelerated service delivery, organisational development for building state capacity, optimising state assets for economic development and supporting entrepreneurs, empowering communities through job creation and integrated planning.
On Radical Economic Transformation, the ANC government is seeking to revitalise and mainstream the township economy by supporting the development of township enterprises, cooperatives and small to medium and micro enterprises (SMMEs) that will produce goods and services that meet the needs of township residents. “To respond to the ANC’s call to expand youth economic participation, we are implementing a more comprehensive and integrated Phase 3 EPWP and CWP together with all GCR role players.”
EPWP is a nation-wide intervention aimed at re-orienting public sector spending in favour of infrastructure projects that contribute to addressing the triple challenges of unemployment, poverty and inequality.
Deputy Minister of Finance Mcebisi Jonas, who visited Gauteng two weeks ago, indicated in his comments on the National Siyahlola Programme that Gauteng is doing very well on the CWP as it is alleviating poverty amongst the poor. “Led by GOGTA, we will upscale this programme,” she said.
Over the past financial year, the department as a GCR collective in partnership with the non-state sector has created a total of 126 104 Phase 3 EPWP work opportunities including the National Youth Service Learnership Program and Zivuseni Reloaded. “Whilst some of the affluent members on the other side of the house look down upon work opportunities aimed at poverty relief among the poor, one single mother from Orange Farm stood up at the portfolio committee stakeholder engagement [event] and expressed her gratitude to the government for taking her — as a single mother — and her children out of poverty.”
The EPWP participants acquire technical skills in construction and maintenance and they contribute to the public assets. The department encourages them as part of the exit strategy towards the end of the project duration to establish their own SMMEs or cooperatives such that they can employ other unemployed people and transfer their skills. It is working with military veterans and other participants to resolve late payment of stipends through a more effective payroll system and to help them to find sustainable employment or businesses.
In this financial year, all sectors — especially the infrastructure sector — have to accelerate creation of EPWP employment opportunities to ensure achievement of one million employment opportunities by 2018/19 as pronounced by the Premier, Mayathula-Khoza said. “Through our entrepreneurial skills development programme, linked to the EPWP, we incubate SMMEs including those owned by women, youth and people with disabilities and we are upscaling this programme due to high demand.”
She quoted Oliver Reginald Tambo, who once said: “A nation that does not invest in its children and youth has no future and does not deserve one”. The GCR collective is also on track in facilitating the creation of 500 000 sustainable employment and entrepreneurship opportunity for unemployed youth, specially young graduates by 2018/19. Since the early launch of the Gauteng Tshepo 500 000 program, 9 169 young people have been registered with the Gauteng job portal and, of these, 1 265 are now permanently employed by private sector companies who have partnered with the Gauteng government. This happens through direct employment placement by matching existing vacancies with young job seekers. In this financial year GCR will ensure the creation of 50 000 decent sustainable jobs and the accreditation of 1 000 youth entrepreneurs.
Various Gauteng departments and municipalities working together with sector education and training authorities are also contributing to this programme that is aimed at giving hope to youth who are struggling to find work, she said. Some of these registered youth are currently on skills development and training programmes to address skills deficiencies as a barrier to employment. “We are inviting more chief executives of private sector companies to absorb young people who are already registered to skill and employ them so that we accelerate this programme in this financial year,” she said.