Chairperson, hon Minister and Deputy Minister, hon Members of Parliament, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, one of the key strategic development priorities of the ANC-led government is speeding up growth and creating more jobs, d ecent work and sustainable livelihoods. Under "Rural Development and Land Reform" the 8 January 2010 statement also states very clearly that the public representatives and government officials who have the responsibility of rural development and agrarian reform must speed up the provision of service to these communities.
With regard to economic transformation, one of the resolutions of the Polokwane conference states clearly that we need to overcome spatial patterns of economic marginalisation and fragmentation. It also states that we must reverse the geography of apartheid in both urban and rural areas.
We need to expand the opportunities for sustainable livelihoods and to support the growth of the second economy activities in the urban centres. We must do this through ensuring better access to the centres of economic growth, financial and institutional support for co-operatives and micro enterprises and a significant expansion of the public works programme linked to the expansion of economic infrastructure and meeting social needs with home-based care and early childhood development on a massive scale. We need programmes that target the employment of women, youth and people with disabilities, targeting labour-intensive production methods and procurement policies.
All these efforts by the ANC-led government are based on the wise words of our stalwart, our mentor, Mr Nelson Mandela, quoted and edited by Jennifer C Williams: "... as long as poverty, injustice and gross inequality persist in our world, none of us can truly rest."
The general approach to fight unemployment and youth unemployment, in particular, is to have a wage subsidy that will create an incentive to hire youth and inexperienced workers and to raise youth employment by 500 000 by 2013, using the Expanded Public Works Programmes.
The key components of Expanded Public Works Programme 2 are: targets and accountability across government spheres; Expanded Public Works Programme, EPWP, incentive grant; nongovernmental sector; and technical support to spheres, sectors and implementation bodies.
The requirement here for public bodies is to have clear targets for each financial year. The public body must have clear programmes which will contribute positively to the targets. The targets will be annually adjusted to the Medium-Term Expenditure Framework in line with budgets available and the performance of each public body.
Respective targets can only be achieved by holding respective political and administrative heads accountable. The setting and monitoring of feedback processes for performance in relation to all targets will be monitored and managed by the EPWP unit. This is very crucial, because without monitoring, evaluation and feedback either monthly or quarterly - by the EPWP unit and the Public Works portfolio committee members, we will not know whether we are coming or going.
As members of the ANC we are motivated by the choices we made. We made choices of committing ourselves to bettering the lives of the millions of disadvantaged South Africans. As Jim Rynn correctly puts it: "Motivation is what gets you started and habit is what keeps you going."
As we all know, the Department of Public Works has been faced with a lot of challenges over the past few years. Again, because of the commitment of the ANC-led government, we did not give up; we could not be deterred by the challenges. Challenges are what make life interesting, and overcoming them is really what makes life meaningful. What the ANC needs is the commitment of the opposition parties to work towards the same goal instead of standing at a distance holding a red pen and looking for mistakes. South Africa belongs to all of us, black and white, united in our diversity.
Together we can intensify the fight against crime and corruption. We can work towards building a developmental state, including improvement of public services and strengthening democratic institutions. Ability is what we have, motivation determines what we do and attitude determines how well we do it.
Let me quote Barrack Obama in one of his speeches when he said: It took a lot of blood, sweat and tears to get to where we are today, but we have just begun. Today we begin in earnest the work of making sure that the world we leave our children in is just a little better than the one we inhabit today.
With regard to the EPWP incentive grant, an amount of R3,2 billion has been allocated to the Department of Public Works over the MTEF period for the payout of the incentives to the public bodies. By 2014 this is expected to grow to at least R5 billion.
The main objective of the EPWP incentive grant is to reinforce and reward public bodies for implementing labour-intensive methods or increasing the labour centres of infrastructure delivery. Commitment and agreement between the Minister of Public Works and the Premiers of each province led to the signing of the implementation protocols between 1 April 2010 and mid July 2010, which are managed by the EPWP partnership development directorate. Technical support from EPWP will be available to work in the provinces. The EPWP monitoring and evaluation unit will give assistance to all identified programmes reporting on the web-based reporting system. Before the public bodies have access to the EPWP incentive grant, they must report to the Public Works department their EPWP projects identified in a prior financial year, meeting minimum job creation based on the available grant budget.
The claims for incentive amounts can only be done upon proving that work has been created above the minimum threshold for EPWP of R50 per day for every day of work created. The public bodies must bear in mind that if they meet their job creation targets, they will receive their incentive allocation quarterly from the Department of Public Works, DPW. The harder they work, the more grants they get.
A minimum eligibility above threshold must be met before the public bodies can start accessing the incentive, except for rural municipalities where zero thresholds can apply. The total full-time equivalent allocation to provinces is R151 million for the 2009-10 financial year. The total incentive allocation to municipalities is R201,7 million of which R147,2 million will go to rural municipalities, and metros will qualify for R54,5 million.
The nongovernmental bodies - NGOs, CBOs and other nonprofit organizations - are expected to create jobs through the implementation of EPWP Phase 2. An amount of R80 million as wage incentive for 2009-10 has been allocated and R749 million over the MTEF period. Management of the nongovernmental sector will be done by the DPW, with oversight done by other departments.
There are two types of programmes that can be implemented under the nongovernmental sector. These are the area-based programmes that include different activities identified by communities in consultation with local government. Then there are institution-based programmes. These will also be delivered by the nongovernmental sector, with specific focus areas such as health care, child care, community safety, etc.
Sihlalo, malungu abekekileyo, iyandivuyisa le ndawo yokulandelela le misebenzi eza kwenziwa, maxawambi sixelelwa ngale misebenzi embetshembetshe enjengokugxotha ikati eziko kuhlale uNomyayi. Bathi xa bezixela, bezincoma uqonde nawe okokuba wonke umntu uza kohlutha kunye nabamelwane, kanti umntu nje uzokwenza iindlela zokufumana imali. Ekuthi kwakufunwa ubungqina bomsebenzi okanye imisebenzi kusuke kungene amabali. Nathi siyiKomiti ejongene nemicimbi yeSebe siza kuthi gqolo sincedisana neSebe ukujonga ngeliso elibukhali loo misebenzi, kungenjalo sizakukha phantsi isitya sigcwele. Siza kucela iingxelo zenkqubela-phambili naxa sihambela amaphondo sizibone.
Enye into Sihlalo, Mphathiswa neSekela lakho, xa ujonga iMpuma Koloni ilelinye lamaphondo athwaxwa yindlala kanobom, yaye lineendonga ezinkulu ezibangelwa lukhukhuliseko lomhlaba.
Xa sinokuvala ezi ndonga ngamatye achola-cholwe ngabantu emakhaya, amatye awathengwa koko kuthengwa ucingo olwalukiweyo ekuthiwa yinetting wire, kuqokelelwe amatye ngabantu belali nganye kuthi kwakugqitywa kuvalwe ezi ndonga ngala matye axhaswe lo lu cingo. Apha phezulu singade sifake okanye sityale amakhala okubamba amanzi nomhlaba, side sityale izityalo neentyatyambo ezintle ezingafiyo nasebusika. Ekuqokeleleni amatye singasebenzisa neenqwelo ezi zitsalwa ziimbongolo okanye iidonki. Kubekho abantu abaqokelelayo nabagangatha iindonga, kubanjwe ukhukuliseko lomhlaba, kubekho iindlela ezintle neendlela ezibukekayo kunye nendlela yokubeka isonka etafileni, kananjalo nelizwe lethu libe lihle lithandeke nakubakhenkethi.
Sihlalo, kuwo onke amaqobokazana athe azijula ijacu ekhangela iinkedama zeli lizwe loMzantsi Afrika sithi 'Huntsu' ningadinwa nangomso, eli lizwe beliyakuba lilizwe elinjani elizele ziinkedama ezizula esithubeni zingenamakhaya. Nibaqoqoshile, nabathanda, nabakhulisa nabenzela namakhaya ngokunjalo. Sithi nakubacimi-mlilo nabanye 'Phambili' Mlisela Nomthinjana welizwe lakuthi. [Kwaqhwatywa.] (Translation of isiXhosa paragraphs follows.)
[Chairperson and hon members, I am delighted by this monitoring of jobs that are still going to take place because sometimes we are told about these state-of-the-art jobs intended to fight poverty. When they make their proposals, you are also convinced that poverty will be a thing of the past, only to find out that these are just money-making schemes. This becomes evident when story after story is told instead of being given the facts about these jobs.
As the portfolio committee, we will continue working with the department in monitoring the jobs in question, otherwise we will fail. We will ask for progress reports and also visit these sites during our provincial visits.
One other thing, Chair, hon Minister and your deputy; the Eastern Cape is one of the poverty stricken provinces and has huge dongas as a result of soil erosion. We can close these dongas by using stones picked up by the villagers. You do not need to buy stones but only the netting wire. People from each village can gather stones to close the dongas using this netting wire. On the surface we can also plant aloe and evergreen flowers to stop soil erosion.
We can use carts drawn by mules or donkeys to gather the stones. Some people could gather the stones and others could pack these stones together or compress them inside the netting wire to stop soil erosion. By doing that we will be making beautiful roads, fighting poverty and ensuring that our country is beautiful and that it appeals to the tourists as well.
Chairperson, we commend all the young women for their tireless efforts in looking after the orphans of this country. Thank you very much. What kind of a country would we have if it was swarmed with homeless orphans? You have nurtured them, loved them, brought them up and provided them with homes as well. We are also encouraging fire fighters and others, by saying 'Forward' to the youth of our country. [Applause.]]