The South African government believes it can support the creation of a million work opportunities through the rollout of an ambitious expanded public works programme (EPWP), which is due to be implemented this year.

But there are still several misgivings about the ability of government to deliver on what is widely accepted to be a praiseworthy initiative.

Some sceptics even suggest that it is nothing more than an election-year stunt, while others question the capacity of the civil service to manage such an ambitious programme.

The initiative has been likened to perhaps history’s best-known public-works endeavour – the New Deal, which was employed by President Franklin D Roosevelt in the 1930s to tackle unemployment by creating work for ten-million Americans.

But can South Africa really repeat this feat? Government will start rolling out its expanded public works programme (EPWP) on April 1 at provincial level, and on July 1 at a local government level.

The workforce for EPWP will be drawn from the jobless in surrounding communities.

It promises more than a million work opportunities for the unskilled unemployed – although only for a period of a few months each – over five years. It forms part of government’s solution to what most observers view as South Africa’s biggest problem – unemployment. Regardless of which definition one employs, South Africa’s unemployment rate is a serious problem. The most frequently quoted statistic is that 31,5% of South Africans remain jobless, and it is a statistic that Department of Public Works (DPW) chief operating officer Dr Sean Phillips believes is threatening South Africa’s social fabric, and, unless addressed, could lead to social unrest.

Born out of the ANC policy conference in Stellenbosch in 2002, the EPWP will operate on four levels. Infrastructure projects are to create 900 000 work opportunities, environmental and culture projects 200 000, social projects 20 000, and economic projects 12 000 work opportunities over the first five years.

Where does the ‘expanded’ fit into the EPWP, though? What makes it different from previous public works programmes, of which there have been many, especially at local and provincial government levels? According to Phillips it refers to the fact that the programme reaches beyond the traditional task of public works as an infrastructure builder.

This programme also includes social, environmental and economic projects. EPWP is also ‘expanded’ because it takes the place of government’s current community-based public works programme that will come to an end when the books close on this financial year – the same programme that, in the view of critics, failed miserably.

EPWP is set to run indefinitely, with set targets for the first five years.

It has a strong focus on skills development, which will, the proponents argue, counterbalance the temporary nature of the work created.

With the necessary skills and experience, it is hoped workers in the programme can find more permanent placements elsewhere.

Under infrastructure, which is the main focus of the programme, the emphasis will be on increasing the labour-intensity of government-funded infrastructure projects. The focus is, therefore, on contracts that can be completed in such a fashion – such as low-traffic-volume roads, stormwater drains, pavements, and trenches for water pipes.

Other contracts that have potential are the maintenance of government buildings and trenching in the electrification programme.

“Here we look at work that can be done with machines that are really nothing more than enlarged versions of tools used by people originally,” explains Phillips.

He uses the example of digging a trench, which can be done by hand instead of an excavator. The programme does not, however, shun the use of machines entirely.

It is still possible to use a compactor, for example, which is necessary to produce a road of good quality.

“What we are trying to do is to bring back work methods appropriate for South Africa’s social conditions,” Phillips comments. “We want to bring back old labour-based methods, but use new management principles to ensure quality and efficiency.” One such management principle is task-based, rather than work-hour payment. Phillips is no newcomer to labour-intensive work methods. He headed up the successful Limpopo public works programme called Gundo Lashu (meaning ‘our victory’ in Venda), from where he was seconded to the national Department of Public Works in July 2003.

In January this year he was appointed full-time to look after EPWP, in the newly-created position of COO.

EPWP is only one of his responsibilities, though.

The main objective of the Limpopo programme, which is still running, is to relieve the backlog of rural road infrastructure and create jobs to improve the livelihood of rural communities.

It has, since its start in 2002, provided 1 589 jobs (each for a period of six months only) to 847 women and 742 men.

The programme was initiated by the Limpopo Provincial Government in 1999. Implementation started in 2001 with a recruitment drive, with the first trial contracts executed in early 2002.

Hopefully Phillips and his team can duplicate the success in Limpopo on a much grander scale across South Africa.

The first step in establishing the EPWP infrastructure programme is to train contractors in labour-intensive work methods.

This process includes new and established contractors.

The Construction Education and Training Authority (Ceta) has allocated 500 sponsored learnerships for emerging contractors a year. Training focuses on labour-intensive work methods, and includes generic material on managing a business venture.

Training is paid for by Ceta, with the UK Department for International Development having sponsored the development of unit standards and training materials.

The number of learnerships was fixed at 500 as it is estimated that each contractor will need R4-million turnover a year to be sustainable, and the R2-billion to R3-billion a year of the government infrastructure spend allocated to labour-intensive methods will only be able to cater for 500 contractors.

Contractors who have completed their training are required to compete on the open market.

This means any company, and not only the 500 emerging contractors, may tender for labour-intensive contracts.

Simultaneous to establishing contractors able to manage and make use of labour-intensive work methods, DPW is also demanding that local and provincial governments ensure the implementation of labour-intensive projects.

Total public sector infrastructure spend over the next five years is estimated at R150-billion, with EPWP targeting 10% of this figure.

This means the infrastructure portion of the programme will be able to offer work to the value of R15-billion over its initial five years.

Conditions on the infrastructure grants will require municipalities and provinces to allocate an increasing proportion of projects as labour- intensive projects over time, and to apply eligibility requirements in the appointment of contractors and engineers on labour-intensive projects – meaning they must be Ceta-accredited in the use of labour-intensive methods.

The conditions demand that 10% of all projects related to rural roads, low-volume municipal roads, pipelines, trenches and pavements have to be conducted in a labour-intensive manner.

The proportion of this type of projects to be done by hand will increase to 80% by 2008/9.

Phillips says his department is working closely with Ceta to ensure that the established construction industry is not left out in the cold – which is why the training authority offers courses in labour-intensive work methods to any interested party. “We need to work with industry to ensure it develops the capacity to manage labour-intensive work methods,” says Phillips.

He emphasises that the concept of labour-intensive methods to build infrastructure does not mean government wants the construction industry to take a step backwards.

These methods will only be demanded for public projects, and will not be required for any private projects. “Given it is public expenditure, we must use it to achieve public aims,” says Phillips.

Nor will EPWP reduce the amount of existing work available in terms of standard contracts, Phillips adds, as government is increasing its infrastructure spending, and labour- intensive methods takes a slice of this bigger cake.

“We are going to spend the money anyway.

The idea is to get the same amount of infrastructure built to the required standards, but offering more jobs for the same money by substituting machines by manual labour,” explains Phillips.

Environmental and cultural projects under EPWP involve a process to incorporate existing programmes under the EPWP banner. These include the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism’s ‘Cleaning up South Africa’ and the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry’s ‘Working for Water’ projects, aimed at dealing with the environmental damage caused by alien vegetation.

The physical outputs of these projects have been quantified – such as to control the invasion of alien plants on a million hectares of land, and to improve 1 200 km of coastline.

The aim of the environmental portion of EPWP is create 400 sustainable small, medium and micro enterprises (SMMEs), apart from the targeted 200 000 job opportunities. Social projects under EPWP will fall under the care of the Department of Social Development.

The initial focus will involve the training of home-based care workers, with the aid of the Department of Health, and early childhood development workers, with the aid of the Department of Education.

The Department of Trade and Industry is to produce a sector plan for the economic programmes under EPWP.

Planning for these programmes does not seem that advanced.

Examples of possible economic sector initiatives include community production centres and enterprise incubator programmes.

Microenterprise incubation learnerships include a process to select possible learners among the unemployed using predetermined selection criteria, and to fund sector education and training authority learnerships for these learners.

Practical work experience, mentoring and access to microfinance with the aid of business is also set to play a role.

The target for the economic programmes is to create 3 000 learnerships over five years, with a projected three employees possible per qualified learner.

Looking at all these programmes, the overarching question about EPWP is, can it work? Will it build 37 000 km of roads, 31 000 km of pipelines, 1 500 km of stormwater drains, and 150 km of urban pavements over the next five years? Philips believes it can and must succeed, adding that it is in every South African’s interest that it does.

Managing the programme over a cross-section of government departments and down to provincial and government level will prove challenging, though.

Phillips says South Africa’s semi-federal system comes with its own set of managerial difficulties. He also warns against the programme being seen as the one big solution to unemployment in South Africa. “The programme cannot be seen in isolation. It is part of a wide range of measures being put in place to address the unemployment problem”.