The Bojanala Platinum District Municipality in the North West has launched a poverty alleviation program to respond to the challenges of high unemployment within five of its local municipalities.
The program was officially launched by the municipality’s Executive Mayor Suzan Nthangeni, who was accompanied by her counterpart Shiela Mabale-Huma of the Rustenburg local municipality at the Rustenburg Civic Centre.
According to Stats SA’s latest report, the municipality is leading with the highest unemployment rate in the North West, while the province has the highest unemployment rate in the country, with 54.2% as of the second quarter of 2024.
The Moretele local municipality which is situated far north of Pretoria and Kgetleng-rivier in Koster are the worst affected municipalities with the highest unemployment rate compared to the other three municipalities within the district.
The mayor says over 1 600 people from across the district have so far been empowered and have already started working.
“They will provide services to their respective municipalities including waste removal, filling leaking water pipes, filling potholes on the internal municipal roads, etc.
“Because poverty is one thing that is very stubborn, it affects almost everyone in our district, either you are directly or indirectly affected.
“We then advertised this poverty alleviation program to recruit about 1 600 participants to empower unemployed and poor community members from the townships and rural areas,” said Nthangeni, who was speaking on You FM Current Affairs Programme, You FM Newshour, for an in-depth discussion on the intentions of the program.
The mayor also committed her municipality to consider other sectors to create job opportunities.
“In response to our ailing economy, you would remember that Bojanala Platinum District is reliant on several economic opportunities from sectors including but not limited to mining, business, agriculture and tourism, to mitigate and intervene on the high unemployment rate.
“We have prioritised infrastructure development or infrastructure re-engineering with the hope of creating jobs to a certain extent,” emphasised Nthangeni.
She applauded Premier Lazarus Mokgosi’s efforts to engage the Chinese business sector in his recent trip to South Korea and the Henan province of China to lure investment to the province and in the district.
The municipality hopes to set aside enough budget to extend the program from providing short to long term job opportunities in the next financial years.
