4th SMS Conference

1
4th SMS Conference SUB-THEME UNBLOCKING THE
IMPLEMENTATION OF PRIORITIES 5 6 September 2005
2
Building a Second Economy Challenges of cross
sector integration of the EPWP Ismail
Akhalwaya Senior Programme Manager
3
Outline of Presentation

• Background To EPWP
• Overview of EPWP as an integrated government
  programme
• Infrastructure Sector
• Case study Labour Intensive Contractor
  Learnership

4
1. BACKGROUND
5

• Growth and Development Summit June 2003
• EPWP identified as one of a wide range of
  initiatives aimed at reducing poverty and
  vulnerability
• EPWPs can provide poverty and income relief
  through temporary work for the unemployed to
  carry out socially useful activities. (EPWPs)
  will be designed to equip participants with a
  modicum of training and work experience, which
  should enhance their ability to earn a living in
  future

6
CODE OF GOOD PRACTICE FOR PWPs

• Gazetted after discussions and agreement at
  NEDLAC
• Provides framework for minimum employment
  conditions on PWPs
• Establishes PWP employment as temporary
  employment coupled with training
• Sets targets for employment of women, youth and
  disabled
• Allows payment on a task basis and a flexible
  minimum wage
• to enable labour intensive production methods to
  compete with machine-intensive methods
• to avoid attracting people away from other
  longer-term employment

7

• Wide range of programmes established post-1994
• e.g. Gundo Lashu (Limpopo)
• Involves substitution of labour for machines in
  road construction and rehabilitation
• Emphasis on developing management and supervision
  capacity amongst small contractors to achieve
  quality, cost-effectiveness and high labour
  intensity
• Long-term employment for small contractors and
  their supervisors
• Workers obtain temporary employment coupled with
  modest training

8

• Zibambele (KwaZulu Natal)
• Length person system approx 10 000 households
  contracted to carry out routine road maintenance
  on a length of road near their homes
• Beneficiaries targeted according to criteria of
  poverty, unemployment and female-headed
  households
• Long-term work and income for beneficiaries, due
  to ongoing nature of routine maintenance work

9
2. EPWP OVERVIEW
10
CONTEXT
11
DESIGN OF THE EPWP

• Must allow for wide diversity of existing
  programmes
• Expand best-practice existing programmes
• To be sustainable, the EPWP must not be
  make-work must be economically efficient
• Emphasis on labour-intensive delivery of
  cost-effective quality services
• To avoid displacement, the EPWP should take place
  in growing sectors of the economy

12
WHAT IS AN EPWP PROJECT?

• Deliberate attempt by the public sector body to
  use expenditure on goods and services to create
  additional work opportunities coupled with
  training for the unemployed and emerging
  enterprises
• Projects usually employing workers on a temporary
  basis (either by government, by contractors, or
  by other non-governmental organisations), under
  code of good practice for SPWP or learnership
  employment conditions
• Projects in which public sector body attempts to
  define and facilitate exit strategies for workers
  when they leave the programme to build bridges
  between the second economy and the first economy

13
WHAT IS BEING EXPANDED?

• Not a new programme - expanding existing best
  practices, eg Zibambele, Gundo Lashu
• Scope expanded beyond traditional infrastructure
  public works include social and environmental
  programmes
• Programmes with proven success will be motivate
  for expanded budgets

14

• IDENTIFIED SECTORS FOR CREATING EPWP WORK
  OPPORTUNITIES
• Government-funded infrastructure projects by
  increasing labour intensity
• Public environmental programmes
• Public social programmes (home community-based
  care and early childhood development)
• Economic eg venture learnerships

15
FUNDING

• EPWP projects are funded from normal budgets of
  departments, provinces and municipalities
• Emphasis is on changing the way in which normal
  expenditure occurs
• Reduces opportunity costs
• EPWP projects are identified and prioritised
  using standard processes
• Mainstreaming labour intensity
• Government bodies do not get involved in poverty
  relief projects outside their core functional
  areas, BUT
• National programme with highly decentralised
  implementation is challenging to implement

16
TARGETS FOR FIRST FIVE YEARS OF EPWP
17
EARMARKED FUNDING
18
3. Case Study Labour Intensive Contractor
Learnership
19
(No Transcript)
20
(No Transcript)
21

• Demand

22
Infrastructure Sector

• Division of Revenue Act earmarks funding via
  infrastructure grants going directly to provinces
  and municipalities
• Projects are identified, planned and implemented
  by departments, provinces, and municipalities
• Role of Department of Public Works
• Set the conditions on the grants use EPWP Tender
  and Design Guidelines
• Facilitate training programmes for workers,
  officials, contractors, engineers, supervisors
• Lobby provinces, municipalities and public
  entities to participate
• Support to municipalities and provinces advice,
  facilitation, programme management support
• Monitor, evaluate and report

23
EPWP Tender and Design Guidelines

• Provide guidance for officials and engineers and
  special contractual clauses for tender
  documentation for EPWP projects
• Require contractors to use labour rather than
  machines for certain construction activities
  under certain conditions
• Makes adherence to the Code of Good Practice a
  contractual obligation for contractors
• Makes it obligatory for contractors and engineers
  to undergo training in labour-intensive
  construction
• Use of the Guidelines on relevant and appropriate
  projects is critical for achieving EPWP
  infrastructure targets

24
Required Skills Programmes - Unit Standards

• Apply Labour Intensive Construction Systems and
  Techniques to Work Activities
• Use Labour Intensive Construction Methods to
  Construct and Maintain Roads and Stormwater
  Drainage
• Use Labour Intensive Construction Methods to
  Construct and Maintain Water and Sanitation
  Services
• Use Labour Intensive Construction Methods to
  Construct, Repair and Maintain Structures

25

• Supply

26
Labour Intensive Contractor Learnership Programme

• Mechanism to expand Limpopos Gundo Lashu
  programme
• Emerging contractors and their supervisors are
  recruited through an open selection process to go
  onto a two-year learnership programme
• Learnership consists of practical and classroom
  training
• Learners graduate with NQF qualifications, able
  to tender for labour intensive projects issued in
  terms of EPWP tender and design guidelines
  long-term income opportunities for the learners

27
INTERGOVERNMENTAL COLLABORATION
IDT
CETA
DPW
Mentors for training providers
Trainers of trainers
Programme Management support
Community Facilitation Support
DOL
Training providers for learnerships
Province / municipality
Mentors for learners
Training projects
Training providers for workers
Learner contractor 2 learner supervisors
Access to credit
ABSA
Unemployed EPWP beneficiaries
28
LABOUR INTENSIVE CONTRACTOR LEARNERSHIP PROGRAMME

• Embedded on notion of coordination, partnerships,
  communication, finding solutions together
• DPW and CETA designed the learnership programme
• Is a support mechanism to provinces and
  municipalities participation is optional
• Participation based on province/municipality
  signing an MOU with DPW and the CETA
• Modelled on Limpopos Gundo Lashu programme
  (expansion of best practice)

29
CETA-DPW Learnership Programme

• Contribution to Department of Labours National
  Skills Development Strategy
• Collaborating on building capacity on SMME
  contractors
• Involves both theory and practical work
  experience on labour intensive infrastructure
  projects
• Contractor learners provided mentoring services

30
CETA-DPW Learnership Programme (cont.)

• Access to bridging finance through ABSA
• At the end of the learnerships contractors and
  their learners graduate with NQF registered
  qualifications
• Municipality or province allocates three training
  projects to the learner contractors
• DPW provides programme management
• More than 1800 learners on board
• Link to CIDB contractor register

31
Financial Services Provided by ABSA

• ABSA selected through a tendering process
• Reduced criteria for learner contractors to
  qualify for finance
• Cheque Accounts opened
• Asset finance
• Overdraft/ Working Capital
• Training on financial management
• During learnership, Mentor is co-signatory on the
  account

32
Lessons learned

• Roles and responsibilities to be defined
  beforehand and documented (MoA)
• All parties are collaborating in good faith
• Hard positions have been replaced by informed
  perspectives from debate to dialogue
• There is respect for existing mandates, rights
  and obligations for collaboration
• Common interests in achieving solutions that
  support sustainability are nurtured

33

• Labour intensive contractor learnership programme
  progress
• 28 provincial departments and municipalities
  signed up for 1800 learnerships to date
• Achieved target of 500 emerging contractors and
  1000 supervisors on learnerships by July 2005
• As part of their learnerships, they will
  implement 1800 EPWP projects to the value of
  approximately R2 billion
• During the implementation of these projects they
  will employ approximately 150 000 people

34
4. CONCLUSIONS
35
LIC Learnership Sustainability Model

• Demand
• DORA LI Guidelines
• Specifies projects that must be done LI
• Sets requirements for training of professional
  staff and contractors (2006)
• CIDB Contractor Register to be phased in

• Supply
• LIC learnership
• NQF qualification
• Work experience
• Track record of having implemented projects
• Financial record
• Higher registration on CIDB contractor register

36
EPWP 2004-05 1 Apr 2004 31 March 2005
Excludes municipalities due to absence of
project level data
37
(No Transcript)
38
4.2 Focus areas for the coming year

• Focus areas for the coming year will be expansion
  of
• Use of labour intensive methods on public
  infrastructure projects in general
• Expansion of ECD and HCBC
• Venture learnerships in the economic sector
• Zibambele routine road maintenance programme
• EPWP approaches to waste management

39

• EPWP Unit
• www.epwp.gov.za
• E-MAIL epwp_at_dpw.gov.za
• Tel [phone]
• Fax [phone]