The 31st August 2012, marks 18 months since the Jobs Fund, a project started in response to the high unemployment rate experienced in our country, was launched.
The project was announced by President Zuma in his 2011 State of the Nation Address, when he highlighted 5 priority areas. And again in 2012 when he gave a progress report on the project.
The fund "does not intend to tackle these long-term, structural causes of low growth and unemployment on its own." The main objective of the Jobs Fund is to co-finance projects by public, private and non-governmental organisations in a bid to contribute to job creation in South Africa.
In materials released through the Promotion of Access to Information Act (PAIA) 2 of 2000, it is noted the fund has only been able to approve 34 projects, which represent only 1,3% of the total applications received.
Since the call for submission was made in the June of 2011, the Development Bank of South Africa which manages the fund received 2651 manual applications for the four broad funding windows namely: Enterprise Development; Support for Work Seekers; Institutional Capacity Building; and Infrastructure Investment window attracted 2 651 applications.
By the end of March 2012, R1,85 billion had been allocated to the 34 projects under the four funding windows to facilitate 76,261 placements and create 108,005 new sustainable jobs over 3 years.
Currently, the fund through its implementing partners is yet to complete the first phase of its goal by placing the unemployed into sustainable opportunities of employment.
The documents released to SAHA do not address the following important matters;
- The funding commitments,
- Continuity of the funded projects,
- Monitoring and evaluation of the projects, and
- Remediation action plan for companies whose applications have been rejected. The plan would include support systems like mentoring and couching programmes for companies to improve their applications.
For more information contact the Freedom of Information Programme at SAHA.
