Scores of Expanded Public Works Programme participants marched to the North West Premier’s office, demanding that the government integrate them into the employment system permanently.
This comes after they were told last month that the Department of Public Works and Roads intends to terminate their contracts. Their contracts expired in July, but a three-month extension was granted when the workers mounted a protest.
The workers say that a three-month extension was insufficient, and they need a twelve-month extension while the government considers permanent job possibilities for them. Stompy Maqungela has been in EPWP for seven years.
“I’ve been working for EPWP since 2016. I have cleaned the streets and cut the trees since 2016, we can’t just be told to leave, we need something to improve our lives,” she said.
EPWP project was introduced in 2004 as one of the government’s major public employment drives aimed at alleviating poverty and providing income relief through temporary work for the unemployed.
The EPWP workers were represented by the National Union of Public Service and Allied Workers (Nupsaw) and the South African Federation of Trade Unions (Saftu).
According to Saftu, Public Works had last month told them that it had contracted in its system more than 13 000 active EPWP’S participants in the North West. National spokesperson of Saftu Trevor Shaku said the programme does not have skills transfer.
“This programme is only working for the government in the context of allaying people’s anger but it is not working in alleviating poverty. If you take a worker who has worked cleaning the streets, cutting the grass, what skill is transferred there.
“What skill is there in cleaning a road, honestly speaking. This is not working both in the skill transfer and also in the alleviation of poverty because these workers continue to receive poverty wages,” he said.
Nupsaw is demanding the extension of the current EPWP contract by a further 12 Months as an interim arrangement while the government finalises the appointment and placement of all EPWP into permanently funded posts. They also want permanent employment of all current EPWP participants.
Nupsaw’s General Secretary Solly Malema said a three month extension was not enough. “Three months is nonsensical. The job that they are doing is important to society and they have been doing it, we demand the government to hire them permanently,” he said.
Public Works and Roads MEC Oageng Molapisi received the memorandum from the marchers on behalf of the Premier. He said the government must come up with a plan to make sure that the participants do not struggle to find employment after the programme.
Molapisi said because the EPWP was a national programme, he will escalate the EPWP demands with the executive council of the province.
“We have noted what is in the memorandum, that in the North West, the demand is that we must absorb these people permanently. Now what it means is that because this is not a policy drafted by the Department of Public Work, what we must do is to submit to the executive council to say EPWP has these demands, how do we then look into that, process it because we want to alleviate poverty,” he said.
