Gauteng will continue its focus on intervening decisively to resolve the bottlenecks facing various industry sectors to save and create jobs at a time when the unemployment rate in the province remains high.
Economic Development and Agriculture and Rural Development MEC Lebogang Maile on Thursday assured residents that many initiatives to save and create jobs would be announced when he delivers his Budget Vote on Monday.
Unemployment in Gauteng hit crisis proportions in the first quarter of the year, with Statistics South Africa revealing employment, in the formal sector, of only about four-million of the nearly 13-million-strong population, and another 720 000 in the informal sector.
More than 2.7-million youth were without jobs, along with another three-million that were still in school or university, Maile told journalists in Johannesburg during a pre-Budget roundtable.
With six-million youth not working, the problem was huge, he said.
Nationally, the unemployment rate had hit its highest level since 2003 when it rose to 27.7% in the first quarter of this year.
Straining Gauteng’s infrastructure further is the urbanisation of 200 000 citizens each year in search of better prospects in the country’s economic hub.
However, all of this placed strain on already-struggling housing, education and health infrastructure, exacerbating the pressures resulting from downgrades, a technical recession, rand fragility and global economic headwinds.
“The problem of youth unemployment and the problem of the [legacy] economic structure demand a systematic response and intervention,” Maile explained, particularly with Gauteng’s goals of creating 600 000 jobs by 2019, along with eliminating its 600 000 housing unit backlog.
“Through our own infrastructure plans of R42-billion by 2019, the questions we must ask are what is the value of any investment we make and how many jobs it will create,” Maile commented.
The established Gauteng Economic Development Plan is examining, in particular, bottlenecks in the manufacturing and service sectors, while focusing on the productive side of the economy, dealing with uncompetitive behaviour, market access, red tape and intra-Africa trade, building the capacity of the economy and accelerating township-based business development.
The township revitalisation project aimed to bring the majority that remain on the outskirts into the mainstream economy through government procurement programmes.
In 2014, the provincial government spent only R800-million on township business. Over the last year, over R6-billion had been spent on township procurement, with government aiming to spend at least 30% of its yearly budget on township businesses.
Some 7 000 entrepreneurs are also now on the government’s database, up from 1 600 a few years ago.
In addition, the provincial department is working with the South African Council of Capital Equipment Exports over the next three years to train youth in skills development with 150 black industrialists mentored.
“There are private sector partners that are coming to the party. The only way to take the township economy to the next level is if we work with the private sector, in partnerships and sharing the vision,” he said.
Maile is due to deliver his budget vote for the Department of Economic Development and the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development.