Question NW508 to the Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs

Reply:

The Strategies required to create work opportunities for the unemployed to contribute to improved service provision include the following:

1. Maximising labour-intensive construction (LIC) where feasible without compromising the quality of the services.
2. Maximising use of labour for maintenance of infrastructure.
3. Ensuring that skills development and training is provided to those employed for provision of services.

The Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP) was introduced by Government to create work opportunities across all its four sectors, namely Infrastructure, Non-State, Environment and Culture, and Social sectors. One of the prescripts of the EPWP is to use labour-intensive methods that ensure that significant numbers of participants are employed in the Programme to do the work. Some examples include opting to employ labour for excavating trenches for pipework instead of using machines, opting for paved roads that maximise labour force as well as litter picking.

The use of labour for planned and routine maintenance of infrastructure includes cleaning stormwater drainage systems, cutting grass or patching of potholes.

It is imperative that skills development and training is part of the public employment programmes mentioned above to ensure that labour is capacitated to perform the tasks for quality products, and as part of the exit strategies wherein the beneficiaries can be employed in future utilising the skills learnt.

The Municipal Infrastructure Support Agent (MISA) is currently supporting municipalities to implement their infrastructure projects labour intensively. This involves ensuring that suitable projects are selected for maximising LIC, LIC design methods incorporated in project documentation, monitoring is done during construction and the work opportunities created are recorded on the EPWP system administered by the Department of Public Works and Infrastructure (DPWI).

End.