By OBAKENG MAJE
The North West Premier, Lazarus Mokgosi said the late Dr Nelson Mandela’s solution oriented leadership qualities must encourage all of them to fight the scourge of poverty and inequity bedeviling the developmental trajectory. Mokgosi, who tabled the Office of the Premier’s 2024/2025 budget said, poverty as Nelson Mandela once remarked, is manmade and “can be overcome by the actions of human beings.”
“Our province suffers from high unemployment and poverty levels, which have an adverse impact in many parts of our communities. The Fourth Quarter Labour Survey of 2023/4 Financial Year paints a grim picture about unemployment in our province, which currently hovers around 52.2 % as per the expanded definition.
“Women and the youth continue to be at the receiving end of this conundrum. The indignity of unemployment and poverty can arguably be blamed for the multi-layered social challenges of crime, drug, and substance abuse as well as Gender-Based Violence and Femicide (GBVF) among others,” he said.
Mokgosi further said they are happy to inform the house that they have appointed members of the Premier’s Economic & Investment Advisory Council. He added that the council comprises Members of the Executive Council (MECs), Labour, and the private sector.
“The inaugural meeting of the council will be convened by me in August. The full plan of action for the council and its economic focus areas will be outlined in the opening address this week. The Office of the Premier is responsible for coordination of interventions for all designated groups, youth, women, and people with disabilities.
“Our focus for this financial year is to scale up and massify all interventions aimed at alleviating youth unemployment as well as advancing initiatives aimed at empowerment of women and people with disabilities.
The Office has entered into several strategic partnerships which will be implemented in the current financial year with partners in the Skills Development sector (SETA’s), private sector bodies to expand our services in bursaries, internships, learnerships, work integrated learning and other formal skills development programmes,” said Mokgosi.
He said they are committed to the implementation of the call they made earlier this year to open the public sector for work opportunities for the youth. Mokgosi said in the current financial year, the Office of the Premier will introduce targeted centralized recruitment for identified entry level posts earmarked for the youth, unemployed graduates and certain critical skills and specializations.
“We have a budget of R 13,954,250 for procurement of goods and services from small businesses led by women, youth and people living with disabilities. We will also increase our monitoring to ensure that all provincial departments and state-owned entities do business with companies owned and led by people from designated groups.
“The province is not doing very well in terms of achieving the employment target of 2% for persons with disabilities.
By the end of financial year 2023/24, the average disability employment equity percentage was sitting at 0.5% when compared to the national target of 3%,” he said.
The Guardian 