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23 November 2005

“Now in its second year of implementation, the Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP) continues to show a positive trend in terms of the number of work opportunities created,” said Minister of Public Works, Ms Stella Sigcau, MP, at a press briefing held during a visit to EPWP projects in Gauteng, on 23 November.

The Minister’s visit to EPWP projects in Gauteng completes a series of visits to all provinces over the past three months to gauge the progress on the roll-out of the programme, its impact on communities and individuals, and success in reaching the targets set.

According to the recently released first quarter figures (2005/06), at least 60 400 gross work opportunities (59 200 net opportunities) were created by the end of the first quarter of the financial year 2005/06. At least 174 800 net work opportunities have been created during the first year of implementation.

The recent report reflects both the gross and net job opportunities over the three-month period for public works programmes across the four sectors of the EPWP, namely the economic, environment and culture, infrastructure, and social sectors.

The EPWP approach for measuring work opportunities is that the gross job opportunities equals the total number of job opportunities created on a project, while the net work opportunities are the gross job opportunities less the opportunities which would have resulted had the same work been done using machine-intensive methods.

The positive trend has also been experienced in the following areas:
* Infrastructure programmes such as Zibambele (KwaZulu-Natal), a road maintenance programme, Gundo Lashu (Limpopo), a road construction programme, and others that are continuing to run successfully
* Improved reporting in the social sector, which was previously hampered by institutional arrangements, and collecting of data according to the required format.
* Environmental and cultural sector programmes and reporting systems, which are now well established and aligned to EPWP requirements, thus ensuring that departments involved are now able to provide consistent reporting to EPWP as a sector
* EPWP guidelines have been updated for the 2005/06 financial year as well as the Standards for Uniformity to ensure continued improvement of implementation
* More than 400 officials have been trained through the EPWP
* Successful mobilisation of other structures such as the water boards, and support from the Business Trust, Independent Development Trust and the Development Bank of Southern Africa
* Targets exceeded include:
- Learnerships: target was 1 500 and total achieved is 1 860
- Data for the first quarter report (1 Apr - 30 June 2005) shows that 64% women, 31% youth, and 4% people with disabilities were employed by EPWP, surpassing the identified targets of 40% women, 30% youth and 2% disabled set for the first five years of implementation of the EPWP

“We have been fortunate that progress had been made with regard to our greatest challenge, namely resistance to labour-intensive methods in infrastructure projects. This is manifested by the successful mobilisation of water boards such as Rand Water and Umgeni Water,” confirmed the Minister.

The EPWP is one of government’s short to medium-term measures focused on alleviating poverty and unemployment, through providing a combination of work opportunities and skills development and training for a minimum of one million people by the year 2009. The programme seeks to ensure that labour-intensive methods are used in government service delivery programmes in the infrastructure, environmental, social and economic sectors.

For further information please contact: Mr Bongani Gxilishe – Deputy Director General: EPWP
Tel: (012) 337 3115
Website at: http://www.epwp.gov.za

Issued by: Department of Public Works
23 November 2005