EXPANDED PUBLIC WORKS PROGRAMMES:
Date
2011-06-08
Authors
Reddy, Sivan
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Abstract
South Africa faces tremendous challenges with regards to unemployment and poverty
on a daily basis. Unemployment is categorised as being structural, chronic and mass.
This situation is due to the falling demand for unskilled labour in relation to the
increasing supply of it. The number of South African labour market entrants far exceeds
the number of available jobs. As a consequence of this, employment creation
intervention is needed, to address this problem. One Government response to alleviate
this crisis has been to launch the Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP).
The purpose of this research was to examine two Johannesburg-based infrastructure
projects under the Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP) namely, the Joubert
Park and Edith Cavell Road Projects that have reached completion. The research
focussed on the quality of the programmes with regards to skills transfer, how the
programme improved the quality of life of the participants, whether the skills
transferred during training enabled the participants to obtain further employment,
challenges in implementing the programme and recommendations for the next phase of
EPWP.
The main findings of the research points to the fact that there are a number of significant
gaps in the way EPWP is being implemented and delivered and that there is disjunction
between the programme as perceived in popular discourse, and the reality on the
ground. With regards to the Johannesburg case study, it was found that no sustainable
employment was created; training received was too short in duration and inappropriate
and did not empower beneficiaries sufficiently to find alternative employment after the
project. With regards to skills transfer, few skills were transferred and hence individual
skills were not improved. Post the project, there was a marked decline in beneficiaries’
socio-economic standard of living. From interviews conducted with other stakeholders,
other gaps indentified ranged from institutional constraints with regards to capacity and
a lack of project management skills; a lack of monitoring and evaluation, and a lack of
brand awareness and communication around EPWP projects.
ii
The study concludes with recommendations for addressing the training and skills
component of projects and programmes and managements role. It is stressed that
training must be geared to meeting the needs of known demands and skills must be
matched to the requirements of the economy. Institutionally, capacity has to be
strengthened as well as project management expertise. Further, there has to be
significant changes in planning, management and implementation systems at large. The
study recommends that there be further deliberations on policy response to
unemployment and poverty as ultimately, for South Africa to meet the Millennium
Development Goal of halving unemployment by 2014, changes are urgently needed so
that the EPWP can be more effective and beneficial to those people that it targets as
beneficiaries
Description
MBA - WBS
Keywords
Expanded Public Works Programmes