Housing in Southern Africa October-November 2016

News Infra tructure & Mixed Use

New EPWP long-term employment initiative The City of Cape Town’s pilot Expanded PublicWorks Programme aims to take the programme a step further and offer job seekers and unemployed graduates a better chance of securing long-term employment.

T he Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP) initiative will provide unemployed South Africa the opportunity to earn income while acquiring skills that couldmake them more employable. The Engineering and Asset Man- agement Branch of the City’s Water and Sanitation Department has been chosen to implement the 18-month project. The R8,9 million project will train 110 semi-skilled workers, who will be partnered with skilled, quali- fied artisans. The candidates are recruited from the City’s apprenticeship database. In some instances these are candidates who require practical application of their theoretical training, or cur- rently registered on the job seeker database. “This is a great project because apart from the all-important job creation aspect, it will help the City build relationships with FET colleges and other tertiary institutions. This also helps to address the desperate need for practical, on-the-job training for graduates who often struggle to find work because they do not have the practical skills to back up their academic qualifications,” said the City’sMayoral CommitteeMember for Social Development and Early Child- hood Development, Suzette Little. Candidates will be trained in first-aid (Level 1), health and safety awareness, as well as the use of power-tools. The candidates will undergo quarterly assessments to measure performance and to G auteng Premier David Makhu- ra says that the provincial government will sell all the properties it owns, including the Premier’s official residence. The Premier made this announce- ment while responding to questions at the Gauteng Provincial Legislature recently. In March, he made a commitment to the legislature that the future of the official residencewouldbeconsidered once the Department of Infrastruc- ture Development had completed an audit of all assets, including non- core assets belonging to the Gauteng Provincial Government. “The asset register and valuation of all government fixed property has

Cape Town (TCT) are two of the big- gest ‘employers’, accounting for just over 50% of all work opportunities.. The City’s EPWP implementation has received a number of accolades at national level in recent years. In the 2015/16 financial year, the accolades included: the National EPWP KAMOSO 2015 Awards: Best Municipality in the Social Sector and the Woman in Construction Award: Most Innovative Woman Training Programme Award. ■ value to service delivery, infrastruc- ture development and our overall agenda TMR,” said Makhura. “ E ku r h u l e n i Me t r o p o l i t a n Municipality prioritised Winnie Man- dela Informal Settlement for the provision of electricity as part of creating liveable settlements under the Informal Settlement Re-blocking Programme.” Makhura added that electrification of Informal Settlement is a prior- ity programme for Gauteng munici- palities. The Departments of Human Settlements and Cooperative Gover- nance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta) are providing the necessary support to national government departments and state-owned enterprises. ■

determine whether remedial action is necessary in order to assist them. “We are so excited about this proj- ect because it means that we are able to increase productivity and efficien- cy by partnering EPWP workers with qualified artisans. It also opens up new avenues of recruitment for the Utility Services Directorate,” said the City’sMayoral CommitteeMember for Utility Services, Ernest Sonnenberg. The C i t y ’s Ut i l i t y Se r v i ce s Directorate, along with Transport for now been completed. The majority of these properties are occupied by public servants. Thirty-one properties will be disposed at the first online auction will take place towards the end of October 2016.” Makhura said he was confident that this decision will not only save the provincial government money from maintenance but it will help raise additional resources to fund the provincial government’s programme of Transformation, Modernisation and Re-industrialisation (TMR) pri- orities such as student bursaries and the youth employment programme, Tshepo 500 000.TMR “We will only keep the property portfolio and land assets which add

Gauteng to sell government properties

October/November 2016