Durban — A R50 million deficit was recorded by the Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP) during the last financial year.
This was revealed during the first Exco meeting under new eThekwini Mayor, Cyril Xaba.
The eThekwini Municipality and the Department of Public Works and Infrastructure (DPWI) said that following the deficit, they would implement a new phase of the EPWP for the 2024/25 financial year.
DA councillor Yogis Govender said the EPWP programme could result in potential unrest due to it coming to an end.
eThekwini legal head Malusi Mhlongo added to Govender’s EPWP notion by providing the EPWP report.
He said they recorded a R50m deficit as it dropped from R68m to R18m over the last financial year. The City was struggling to maintain the programme in its current format, he said.
After presenting the report, the City decided not to continue with the programme as it was too expensive and cost a further R290 million to keep it going. Mhlongo said the report stressed the legalities of the programme in that it focused on women and the youth for a period not exceeding three years.
“It became evident that this current form can’t be sustained. For that reason, we issued a letter to participants and their managers that we have to terminate (the programme) with the hope that we’ll then find through the process money from the City,” he said.
R24 million still had to be paid in compensation for July, Mhlongo said. He asked that Exco grant the City permission and allow city manager, Musa Mbhele, to enter into a memorandum of understanding with the Department of Public Works and Infrastructure to receive the grant first.
Once that was in place, he said, it would allow for approval of the EPWP phase 5 – in the 2024/25 financial year.
The report tabled on July 23 last year, sought authorisation for EPWP phase 5 and enabled the city manager to enter into a new agreement with the DPWI for the 2024/25 financial year. It also called for supplementary funding to augment the DPWI incentive grant.
The EPWP, a key component of eThekwini’s Integrated Development Plan, aims to reduce unemployment, provide short-term income relief, and offer training for the previously disadvantaged and unemployed.
The programme promotes economic growth and development integration across all sectors.
Mhlongo said they would ask for the authority and the chief financial officer to allocate the full funds and that they would have to begin the process of starting a new EPWP programme from scratch – which will be a costly affair.
The municipality aims to create 65 018 work opportunities between 2024 and 2029. For the 2024/25 financial year, the municipality will receive an R18.79 million incentive grant from the DPWI, a reduction of R42m from the previous year. As a result, the number of participants will decrease from 4155 to 1276, with current contracts ending this month, followed by a new recruitment process.
South African Municipal Workers Union eThekwini regional secretary, Xolani Dube, said the union did not agree with what the City was doing because they believed that workers were still providing a service.
“We don’t know how they reduced the incentive by R42m because the City has previously worked well with the EPWP,” Dube said.
“Between 2017 and 2019, they got awards due to their work with the EPWP.”
He added that this reduction was concerning because a lot of workers were breadwinners and families were heavily reliant on them.
He urged the City to stop “this notion of reducing and allow workers to work”.
Dube said the current structure of the EPWP involved contracted workers from Durban Solid Waste (DSW), water workers; Safer Cities and Area-Based Management.
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