Bhisho focuses on jobs

JOBS took centre stage yesterday as MECs lined up to detail their plans for Bhisho’s R59.2-billion budget.

The department of roads and public works said it would generate more than 149000 short- term jobs as part of the Extended Public Works Programme (EPWP) which drives infrastructure development.

The department of health said it would create more than 4000 jobs in the budget period and the department of education promised to extend the contracts of temporary teachers while it completed a full inventory of teaching posts.

MEC for economic affairs Mcebisi Jonas said his department was working with Rhodes University on jobs monitoring and labour market analysis. He said the province’s Jobs Stimulus Fund and Imvaba Fund, both administered by the Eastern Cape Development Corporation, had created more than 7000 jobs since 2011.

Tabling her budget policy speech in the provincial legislature yesterday, roads and public works MEC Thandiswa Marawu told the provincial legislature in Bhisho that R1.062-billion of the department’s R3.67-billion budget would be spent on infrastructure while R410-million would go to the EPWP.

The provincial education department said it had budgeted for educator post provisioning for the 2013-14 financial year, but could not confirm the amount at the time of going to press.

The department of health said it would create more than 4 000 jobs for nurses, clinical specialists and doctors, and would recruit 500 lay counsellors to strengthen the province’s HIV counselling and testing campaign.

“Last year the department expanded the Maternal Obstetric Unit programme to cover the entire province which necessitated the recruitment of 216 additional emergency care practitioners. Fifty-three young unemployed people have been employed as a result of two construction sites at Frere and Cecilia Makiwane hospitals. The Cuban Programme also has 152 students from the Eastern Cape who on completion will be deployed as medical doctors in the rural hospitals within the province,” health MEC Sicelo Gqobana said.

In the previous year the department appointed 483 doctors, 24 dentists, 21 specialists, 775 professional nurses, 991 assistant nurses and 339 community health workers . In total 2771 clinical personnel were appointed, he said.

Marawu said her department would continue its job creation drive through public entities, with a target of more than 149000 jobs in the next financial year starting next month.

“An additional 1000 work opportunities will be created by the department through its infrastructure projects,” she added.

Marawu acknowledged that this year’s budget policy speech comes at a time of massive job losses in the Eastern Cape, which has the highest unemployment rate of nearly 30% according to the last Statistics SA report.

The Daily Dispatch reported in January the province shed 69000 jobs in the last quarter of 2012 .

According to education MEC Mandla Makupula, teacher demand, supply and utilisation is a key priority area in his department.

To prepare the ground for the declaration of the 2014 educator post establishment at the end of September 2013, the department was completing its learner verification process to give clarity on learner number figures. “We are also on track to issue a long overdue comprehensive educator post bulletin by April 2013.”