About EPWP

The Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP) is a national programme that aims to draw a significant number of the unemployed into productive work. This programme involves creating temporary work opportunities for the unemployed, while ensuring that workers gain skills and training on the job, and so increase their capacity to earn an income in the future.

The programme is one of an array of government’s initiatives to try to bridge the gap between the growing economy and the large numbers of unskilled and unemployed people who have not yet enjoyed the benefits of economic development. The fundamental strategies to increase employment opportunities in the economy are aimed at increasing economic growth so that the number of nett new jobs being created starts to exceed the number of new entrants into the labour market. They are also focused on improving the education system and access to training in a way that better equips the workforce to take up the largely skilled work opportunities which economic growth will generate. In the meantime, there is a need to put in place short to medium-term strategies that seek to reduce the vulnerability of the unskilled and marginalized. The EPWP forms one of these government measures aimed at creating additional job opportunities through providing a combination of work opportunities and skills development and training for a minimum of one million people by the year 2009.

What are we expanding?

The emphasis of the EPWP is to expand the use of labour-intensive methods in government-funded service delivery projects to create more work opportunities and stimulate entrepreneurial activity. Many public bodies around the country are already implementing public works type programmes and one key objective of the EPWP is the expansion and replication of existing best-practice programmes, under the Code of Good Practice for Special Public Works Programmes (SPWP), or learnership employment conditions. Many EPWP projects were initiated over the last ten years, and provide successful models within the content of EPWP. Another feature of EPWP projects is the built-in attempt by the public sector body to define and facilitate exit strategies for workers when they leave the programme, as a way of helping to build bridges between the first and second economy.

How does the EPWP work?

The programme has a target of providing employment and training for at least one million unemployed people in its first five years. It involves all spheres of government as well as State Owned Enterprises (SOEs), establishing itself as a cross-cutting government programme that extends beyond the Department of Public Works. Projects are implanted that change the way in which prioritized services are delivered and expenditure occurs, but without creating any additional financial burden. These projects are being implemented under four sectors – environmental and cultural, social, infrastructure and economic sectors – in this way expanding the focus of the programme beyond the traditional infrastructure sector.

Economic Sector

Projects are focused on developing small businesses and cooperatives, including using general government expenditure on goods and services to provide the work experience component of the venture learnership programme – a target of 3000 venture learnerships have been approved by Cabinet over the first 5 years of the programme.

Environmental and Cultural Sector

Work opportunities are created in public environmental programmes, through projects that support the creation of sustainable land-based livelihoods, people and parks, growing the tourist economy, Working on Fire, Working for Wetlands programmes, as well as community-based natural resource management.

Infrastructure Sector

The labour intensity of government-funded infrastructure projects is increased by ensuring the use of labour-intensive methods to upgrade low volume rural municipal roads and pipelines, storm-water drains, sidewalks and trenching. However, the focus is not limited to these activities alone.

Social Sector

The implementation of the EPWP under this sector will focus initially on expanding home/community based care and early childhood development programmes. Future projects will expand into the provision of other social services

Who can benefit from these EPWP projects?

• People living in the vicinity of EPWP projects will be employed by contractors, project managers, and municipalities to carry out work

• Projects that are aimed at improving the local environment will employ people from those local municipalities that are affected

• Social sector projects will draw people from local communities to be employed by local organizations to work on home-based care programmmes, coordinated by the Departments of Social Development, Health and Education

• Candidates to learnerships and to work on projects are selected by an open process through local municipalities and public notices

• The EPWP Contractor Learnership Programme, now called Vuk’uphile, is aimed at emerging civil contractors and individuals who are starting up in the construction industry, and candidates can apply though their municipalities; more than 1000 emerging contractors and 2000 supervisors (3000 in total) will be enrolled for Construction Education and Training Authority (CETA)-registered learnerships to gain the skills needed to build infrastructure labour-intensively.