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Thousands of Gauteng residents, employed through Premier Panyaza Lesufi’s Nasi iSpani programme, will now face the hardship of unemployment as the poorly planned job programme crumbles due to a lack of funding, as reported by the Departments of Agriculture, Rural Development and Environmental Affairs, Education and Community Safety.

In a memo dated 25 June 2024, signed by the Acting Head of the Department for Agriculture, Rural Development, and Environmental Affairs, Green Army EPWP participants are informed that their contractual agreement with the department has ended on 31 May 2024. Furthermore, the memo states that there will be delays in the payment of stipends for the work completed by participants in June because of “administrative and systematic procedures”.

Furthermore, the Department of Education also issued a memo on 12 June 2024, reminding the Gauteng Youth Brigade programme employees that their contracts end on 30 June 2024. However, the department also issued a retraction on 19 June 2024, stating that new information regarding the status of the programme will be communicated before the reopening of schools.

Following the release of these memos and outcries from the departments that they do not have the money to continue funding these programmes, Premier Lesufi has come out to deny that Nasi iSpani has collapsed and shifts the blame to the heads of department for "undermining the authority of the 7th administration".

The DA since the initiation of this programme, repeatedly warned Premier Lesufi that the Gauteng Provincial Government does not have adequate funds to sustain this programme.

The collapse of Nasi iSpani shows that employment opportunities for the over 2.5 million unemployed Gauteng residents, many of whom are youth, cannot be created through badly planned short-term programmes. Political expedient programmes lacking long-term sustainability due to budget constraints will only leave the people, who are breadwinners, solely dependent on these contracts, feeling shortchanged and diminish their trust in government.

The DA maintains that while we support short-term employment programmes to help residents gain skills they might not acquire through formal education, it is not the government's responsibility to create employment opportunities. We believe that the primary role of the government is to create a conducive environment for the private sector to generate sustainable jobs. We further underline the importance of cutting red tape to enable private-sector investment in the province's economy.

The DA demands that Premier Lesufi takes Gauteng residents into his confidence and acknowledges the failure of Nasi iSpani. The people of Gauteng deserve a job creation strategy that is well-planned and budgeted for, not gimmicks.

Issued by Solly Msimanga MPL - DA Gauteng Leader of the Official Opposition