The Limpopo provincial government says it plans to create 429 000 new jobs in the 2019/20 financial Year.
This is according to the Provincial Director-General Nape Nhabeleng, who presented the Limpopo government’s mid-term performance review in Polokwane on Wednesday evening.
The midterm report reflects the progress made and challenges encountered in delivering quality services, creating jobs and industrialising the province halfway through the current administration’s term in office.
The midterm report is an instrument in which the provincial government accounts to the people of Limpopo on the work done since assuming office in 2014 and anchors future interventions to improve on delivery and other mandates.
In his presentation, Nchabeleng announced that their plan will see the province’s unemployment rate reduced from 38.4%, to less than 33% by the 2019/20 financial year. He adds that, “The provincial government will improve access to basic services such as water from 83% from 2014 to 90% by the 2019/20 financial year.”
He reports that the province is in the right direction to grow and enhance economic activity in special economic zones such as Musina, Makhado Tubatse, Lephalale and the City of Polokwane which have been identified as part of the industrial agenda for major job creation.
The presentation was interrogated and engaged by political analyst Professor Lesiba Teffo from the University of South Africa and Political Analyst from the Institute for Dialogue and Policy Analysis, Elvis Masoga.
Teffo says, “The politics of the ‘stomach’ is derailing the province to progress in creating jobs and growing the economy. Go back to the basics. Don’t benefit from your office as a politician but let your office benefit from you.”
While Masoga notes that when the democratic government came in, there were expectations from black people because of the imbalance that was created by apartheid government, “The ANC has given too much and this has led to people folding their arms, it has created a society that depends mostly on government,” he says.
In response, stand-in-Premier for the evening, Seaparo Sekoati affirmed government’s commitment to ensuring that Limpopo is industrialised and a better province to live in.
