Relatively high rural population

Relatively high proportion of young people

Relatively low proportion of employed people

Relatively high proportion of poorly paid employees

Confirming the foregoing, the recently launched Provincial Growth and Development Plan describe the development challenges and constraints faced by the province as being the following:

Wide-spread and deep rooted poverty with some 67% of the provincial population living below poverty datum line.

Sub-optional economic growth- estimated at 2, 4% between 1995-2001, and stagnation in key labour absorptive sectors such as agriculture.

Rising unemployment-estimated at 55%

Geo-political and economic bifurcation between the western former CPA of the province and the former Bantustan in the east.

Labour market fragmentation that mirrors the spatial fragmentation of the province, with a provincial labour market characterized by those employed in the core consumer economy, consisting of dominant high-wage modern sectors of manufacturing, government service, and the other industries and services; those employed in the marginal modern sectors such as the two low-wage sectors of commercial agriculture and domestic service; and the peripheral labour force, including the unemployed, and those engaged in subsistence agriculture and informal sector

Constraints on provincial expenditure, with some 83% being allocated to social services and only 17% to economic programmes and infrastructure, compounded by an extremely weak revenue base at municipal level

High HIV and AIDS prevalence throughout the province, exacerbated by high levels of poverty, and backlogs in water, sanitation, and access to health care.

In response to the above set of challenges the National government has made numerous policy pronouncements and adopted a myriad of development programmes to turn things around the last of which is the implementation of labour intensive methodologies in implementing government programmes.

Without assuming that Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP) is and would be a panacea of all unemployment and poverty challenges, however, it is governments’ considered view that EPWP will go a long way in cushioning the majority of the poor people in our country in general and our province in particular.

Honourable members, our intention here this morning, like many of our sister provinces, is to share our experiences, progress, challenges and thoughts on the rollout of the EPWP. Most importantly, we are also here to learn from experiences of other provinces. This is so Honourable members because we are driven by the same objective, that is, to serve the people of our country and deliver them from the shambles of destitution.

The Provincial Executive Council approved the establishment of a Provincial Steering Committee in pursuance of the President’s call. This steering committee is not meant to replace existing co-ordination structures, but rather to ensure Expanded Public Works principles are embodied in all our programmes in particular those contained in the Provincial Growth and Development Plan ,Urban Renewal Programmes, Integrated Sustainable Rural Developments Plans and in the Integrated Development Plans of the various municipalities.

The EPWP was launched in the Province on the 3^rd September 2004, at Umtata by Minister Stella Sigcau. The launch focused on the Social Sector in order to demystify the fact that EPWP is only about infrastructure. Pledges in support of the EPWP were signed by the Premier and MEC’s leading the Sectoral committees. Our communication strategy realised the need to popularize the EPWP beyond the launch hence we are producing brochures, video footage on the EPWP etc..

3.Objectives

The main objectives of the EPWP are to enhance the ability of the workers to earn an income either through the labour market or through entrepreneurial activities i.e.

• Provide unemployed people with work opportunities
• Provide education and skill development

The EPWP is driven by the following institutions.

• The Provincial Executive Council
• Cabinet Cluster on Economic and Infrastructure Development
• EPWP Provincial Steering Committee

The Provincial Executive Committee resolved that the MEC for Roads and Public Works be the Political champion of the EPWP and in return will report to the Cabinet Cluster and the Executive Council.

At an administrative level the HOD for Roads & Public Works is responsible for the programme and he reports to the Director-General Senior Management meetings

The steering committee is chaired by the Head of the Department of Roads and Public Works and is constituted by the following departments:

• Provincial departments
• National departments
• Municipalities through SALGA
• State Owned Enterprises
• Organised Business
• Organised Labour

The department of Roads and Public Works is providing secretariat functions and assisted by the Eastern Cape Socio Economic Consultative Council, Independent Development Trust, Rapid Infrastructure Development and the Development Bank of South Africa. On a monthly basis the Steering Committee will report to the Director General including the Political Head of the Department of Roads and Public Works and on a quarterly basis report to the Expanded Public Works Programme Unit nationally.

Amongst the functions of the steering committee is to ensure:

• Departments increase their investment in poverty alleviation programmes.
• Sectoral plans compliment provincial mainstream programmes
• All departments, municipalities and state owned enterprises contribute towards the Sectoral plans.
• Sustainability, monitoring and evaluation are central components of these programmes
• Targets for the province are set and realised.
• Sectoral sub committees are functional.
• Training and development is co-coordinated.
• Exit strategies are developed by Sectoral committees
• Collect and collate reports from Sectoral committees.
• Develop a communication strategy.

The programme within the province is divided into three sectors (Infrastructure & Economic; Social and Environmental and cultural) ; each constituted by a number of Departments; with one Department nominated to lead each sector.

DR&PW

DEAT

Health

Transport

Education

Sports Arts & Culture

DWAF

Agriculture

DWAF

Sports Arts & Culture

Agriculture

- Health

- Agriculture

- Sports Arts & Culture

- Education

Each of the lead Department is being expected to perform the following :

• Establish a sector co-coordinating committee
• Determine a sector strategic framework and produce a sector plan.
• Set targets and performance standard.
• Review sector EPWP targets.
• Put in place a funding strategy
• Develop & sector training capacity building frame which includes

- Identification of training needs for the sector

- Identification of exit strategies within sector the sector

- Define linkages between training and exit strategies

- Facilitate agreement and MOU’s

- Monitor and evaluate performance of the sector

- Submit regular sector reports to the Provincial Steering Committee

Given the new challenges brought by the EPWP particularly around coordination, the need to link with other spheres of Government; State Owned Entities , monitoring , directly assisting these institutions on implementation . Because of the above factors and the lack of human resource capacity this has led us to consider establishing an EPWP Unit within the Public Works Directorate. As an interim measure we are to seek secondment of officials from DBSA,RIDA and IDT through the existing MOU’s.

The beneficiaries who will be employed in the programme are expected to receive training as per the requirement of the Code of Good Practice for Special Public Works Projects. The EPWP is expected to provide beneficiaries with an opportunity to participate in the world of work and at the same time receive training as part of the package.

The skills development framework will be focused, meaning that beneficiaries will have to focus on the skills that will be critical for the EPWP.

The training of EPWP beneficiaries must be linked to potential exit strategies in order to maximise the chances of success of the beneficiaries.

It is also imperative that training for internal staff is built within the programme to ensure that it is properly managed and officials are in a position to assist whenever necessary.

• The EPWP is not catered within our existing organogramme and this presents a need to create more capacity. In order to address this problem rather than to have temporal support , we intend to establish an EPWP Unit which will account directly to the Public Works Programme Directorate.
• Cooperation from line departments is a very serious problem. We have written to the various Heads of Departments and Political Heads and have promised to attend to this problem.
• Coordination with local spheres of government is still weak. We are of the view if we strengthen our capacity this may be addressed.
• We have realised there are different interpretations of the programme and lack of understanding by managers. The communication strategy we intend putting in place may assist in this regard.