Almost 38,000 young people in Gauteng who were employed in various temporary employment projects are now jobless. However, the Gauteng government says there are many more employment programmes in the province they can still benefit from.
About 32,000 worked as teacher assistants at schools, while 6,000 were employed by the Green Army, which falls under the highly publicised Nasi iSpani programme.
Some of the teacher assistants worked in classrooms, where they took the register, made photocopies and carried out other administrative tasks.
Others were involved in maintenance at schools, data capturing or helping with sports and cultural activities. Though this was a national government programme, when their contracts lapsed at the end of last year, Gauteng premier Panyaza Lesufi made a bold announcement that the province would retain them.
Early this year, he issued appointment letters to those whose contracts expired in December. Some saw the highly publicised event as an electioneering stunt. Now, a few months after the elections, their contracts have ended and have not been renewed.
The Green Army, which fell under Nasi iSpani and which has lapsed, was set up to help communities establish food gardens and general environment maintenance.
It ran for a year from May last year. The Green Army employed 6,000 youth. Despite the bleak picture, the Gauteng government says there are still other youth employment programmes running that residents of the province can benefit from despite the lapse in the contracts.
In an interview with TimesLIVE Premium, Gauteng premier spokesperson Sizwe Pamla said only two programmes have lapsed in the many initiatives run under Nasi iSpani.
The two programmes are teacher assistants and the Green Army.
“We still have the crime prevention wardens. In fact, we have 3,000 military veterans that will join them to add to the 7,000 to make 10,000 in total.”
The target is to train 500,000 youth, and 15,000 have since been taken in by different organisations for skilling
He added that 6,000 young people are being trained to install solar panels and are receiving a stipend. The colleges where they are being trained requested that they come in small groups as there was no capacity to take all of them at once.
“There is a provincial government programme of installing solar panels in government buildings, including police stations, schools and clinics,” Pamla said.
He added that there are also discussions about introducing solar panels in new RDP developments as part of the government’s plan to mitigate against the high price of electricity.
Last week, the Gauteng government announced that the teacher assistant programme, which had been linked with Nasi iSpani, was coming to an end. The programme was part of the Presidential Youth Initiative, which was started during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Pamla said there are other programmes that are still running under Nasi iSpani . These include the civic ambassadors who provide education to the community. They assisted in registering people for the May general elections.
He said under Nasi iSpani, there is also the Sawubona Mhlali Youth Brigade, which works as an arm of government that facilitates access to services such as child support or foster grants, identifying children not in school or without birth certificates, and linking the needy to government’s food relief programmes.
There are also the Aga Lerona roadworkers programme, which is aimed at road infrastructure maintenance, and the property maintenance programme, which clears and maintains vacant land and old government facilities.
Another is the Youth Development Profiling Programme which deals with issues that young people are facing in communities and the interventions that could help them.
Another Nasi iSpani initiative introduced in April this year is iCrush No Lova which is implemented in partnership with the department of employment and labour. In this initiative, the youth registered on the national department's database gets placed for training in organisations which provide industry-specific skills.
Among the many sectors involved are security services, town planning, technological innovation, cosmetics, beauty, industry, farming, real estate, textiles and clothing, finance, and construction.
The target is to train 500,000 youth, and 15,000 have since been taken in by different organisations for skilling.
The department of employment and labour has set aside R8.4bn to implement the programme in Gauteng. Nationally, the expenditure for this initiative stands at R23.7bn.
Opposition parties in the Gauteng legislature have criticised Nasi iSpani as a ploy by Lesufi to win votes in the province. However, Lesufi has dismissed this, arguing that his administration prioritises addressing unemployment.
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