The government’s R23.8 billion Labour Activation Programme (LAP) is not an electioneering tactic, Employment and Labour Minister Thulas Nxesi has said.
Nxesi launched the programme earlier this month. It aims to offer jobs and training opportunities to Unemployed Insurance Fund (UIF) beneficiaries and unemployed youths in South Africa.
More than 700,000 people will benefit over the next 12 to 36 months across 333 projects in various provinces. Gauteng is the biggest beneficiary, with 482,000 people expected to get jobs or training under the recently launched iCrush No Lova Jobs and Skills Programme.
LAP ‘not an election tactic’
With elections just weeks away on 29 May, some have criticised the LAP as an electioneering tactic, something Nxesi strongly denied during the programme’s launch in Cape Town on Wednesday (17 April).
“These programmes were planned long ago, but we had to be meticulous this time. We talked about this programme right at the beginning of this term, but the problem was [that] we were hit by COVID-19 for two years,” he said in an interview with SABC News.
The government could not unroll the programme at that time and had to divert R65 billion in UIF funds to assist workers who had lost their jobs because of the pandemic, the Minister explained.
“However, we said, let’s plan properly now, re-evaluate everything and launch it together with the budget cycle, [which] unfortunately starts in April which [is] on the eve of elections. That’s a coincidence, but before, during and after the elections, we will continue to talk about job creation schemes,” he said.
After the Gauteng and Western Cape launches, other provinces will follow on the dates below:
- Eastern Cape: 19 April
- Free State: 22 April
- North West: 23 April
- Mpumalanga: 24 April
- Limpopo: 30 April
- Northern Cape: 9 May