BL Premium reports that President Cyril Ramaphosa’s public employment initiative has been bolstered with a provisional allocation of R11bn in the 2021/2022 financial year, according to the national budget tabled on Wednesday.

This would “boost short-term employment”, National Treasury indicated in the Budget Review. The programme had received R12.6bn in the last fiscal year. The presidential employment stimulus programme, announced by Ramaphosa in October 2020, had by January 2021 created 430,000 jobs of varying duration, and aimed to create another 180,000 by March. Placements have been made in education, in programmes to reduce landfill waste, the creative and cultural sector and in business services, according to the review. Ahead of the budget, there was uncertainty about whether the programme, which promised to put 700,000 people into temporary jobs over six months as part of the Covid-19 economic stimulus package, would be funded in the budget. On Wednesday, Finance Minister Tito Mboweni said R83.2bn had been made available for public employment programmes since the 2020 special adjustments budget. This was now being augmented by the R11bn for Ramaphosa’s employment initiative, taking the total funding for job creation to nearly R100bn.

• Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Genevieve Quintal at BusinessLive (paywall access only)

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