Johannesburg - The North West government is set to spend billions of rand on the construction and reconstruction of schools, and roads which were destroyed in the recent floods.
Premier Bushy Maape announced this during when his State of the Province Address (Sopa) in the provincial legislature on Friday.
The province also has a major pothole in its major cities such as Mahikeng, Potchefstroom and Klerksdorp and the rural towns of Lichtenburg, which Maape has promised to deal with.
“The delivery of public and social infrastructure is one of the critical drivers of economic recovery and creation of the much needed jobs.
“The total provincial infrastructure budget for the 2022/23 financial year is estimated at R4.824 billion and the province will spend in excess of R14 billion on infrastructure over the 2022 MTEF period,” he said.
Maape said in excess of R1.2 billion will be spent on maintenance and construction of new schools.
The Department of Health was allocated R581 million in the 2022/23 financial year for maintenance, rehabilitation, and construction of health facilities.
Public Works and Roads would receive R1.3 billion in 2022/23 for road infrastructure.
He, however, conceded that the performance and the capacity of provincial departments and state-owned entities to deliver on the infrastructure mandate had been far from satisfactory.
“The underspending of infrastructure expenditure, and loss of conditional grant allocations to the National Revenue Fund is to be addressed as a matter of urgency.
“We will revive the Premier’s Infrastructure Coordinating Committee to assess readiness of projects to be implemented in the 2022/23 financial year.
“The structure will strengthen the hand of political heads of departments, to hold accounting officers managing infrastructure allocations accountable for failure to deliver on projects. We want to see the ratio being 20% planning and 80% implementation of infrastructure projects” Maape said.
He said his government had already reached out to the Infrastructure South Africa (ISA) Unit in the Presidency, to assist with the establishment of monitoring capacity in the Office of the Premier to improve infrastructure delivery.
“ We are conscious that the Economic Reconstruction and Recovery Plan will not create sufficient employment opportunities in the short-term. We are therefore determined to ensure that the youth, women and people with disabilities are primary beneficiaries of available work opportunities generated through the delivery of public infrastructure.
“A total of 12 494 job opportunities will be created across all infrastructure delivery departments in the 2022/23 financial year through the Expanded Public Works Programme,” Maape promised.
The Premier also revealed that he was working with various sectors to turn the tide of unemployment in the North West which stood at 35.7% and youth unemployment at an all-time high of 63%.
“Our economy has taken a battering due to the impact of Covid 19 pandemic. Provincial GDP contracted by 7,6% in 2020. Economic recovery is projected to be about 6% of GDP in 2021 and 1,9%in 2022.
“One of the challenges we are facing, however, is that economic recovery in terms of GDP is not necessarily translating into proportional recovery in the number of jobs lost during the worst time of the Covid 19 pandemic.
“These levels of unemployment are described as a ticking time-bomb which requires different social partners to work together in finding lasting solutions.
“As part of the process to address the challenges of unemployment, we have in the last months been engaging with different sectors of the economy, in order to develop a common platform within which economic growth and job creation can be addressed.
“Last month we engaged with the mining sector at the North West Mining Investment Conference. We interacted with the agricultural and tourism sectors, which are critical to the growth of the provincial economy,” Maape said.
He said these interactions with the critical sectors of the economy were a build up towards the Provincial Jobs Summit to be held in May 2022 bringing together organised labour, business and other stakeholders.
Maape said the focus of the job summit would be to take forward the outcomes of their engagements with all role players aimed at building consensus and compacts on growing the economy, in order to create jobs.
Political Bureau