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Home 9 Press 9 STATEMENT: YOUTH CAPITAL CALLS FOR THE DEPT OF EMPLOYMENT & LABOUR TO RELEASE THE FUNDS FOR THE BEEI

STATEMENT: YOUTH CAPITAL CALLS FOR THE DEPT OF EMPLOYMENT & LABOUR TO RELEASE THE FUNDS FOR THE BEEI

Clotilde Angelucci

27 August 2024

Youth Capital officially requested to the Acting Director General of the Department of Employment and Labour (DEL)and the Commissioner of the Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) to release the funds for the Basic Education Employment Initiative, in a letter dated Friday 16 August 2024. To date, no response has been obtained by the department on the matter.

During the Annual Budget Speech in 2024, Minister Godongwana announced the extension of
R61.4 billion allocated for employment programmes over the medium term. Of this amount, R7.4
billion has been identified for the Presidential Employment Initiative. Later in March, it was communicated with Youth Capital that the funds for the PES would come from the UIF.’It’s now the end of August and details haven’t been shared. Since our letter has been sent, we haven’t yet heard back from the DEL nor the UIF’ adds Kristal Duncan-Williams, Project Lead at Youth Capital.

In 2023, Youth Capital, in partnership with SERITI and Amandla awethu campaigned to extend the funding for the Presidential Employment Stimulus. In support of this call, the campaign co-authored an Open Letter to the Minister of Finance and the National Treasury, with the Centre for Social Development in Africa and Southern AfricaLabour and Development Research Unit (SALDRU) – the letter was supported by 86 organisations. The petition was signed by over 24500 people.

‘The Presidential Employment Stimulus has had an impressive impact on our economy. Since its inception in 2020, it has created over 1.7 million work opportunities; specifically, the Basic Education Employment Initiative (BEEI) provided support to learners in over 20 000 schools across the nine provinces, in both rural and urban areas, through the role of teachers’ assistants and general maintenance assistants’ adds Duncan-Williams. Research by SALDRU identified the economic impact of the BEEI, on local economies, with an indirect increase in the amount spent in local retailers and wages in areas where the programme took place.

‘Our country is facing a host of serious challenges and urgent measures are needed. Earlier this
month, Statistics SA just reported that our country is recording the highest youth unemployment
figures in the last 20 years, with strong gender disparities regardless of education; it’s critical to
note that 8 in 10 of the beneficiaries of the PES are young people, and 6 in 10 are women.’ adds Duncan-Williams.

The issue of poor communication adds to uncertainty and scams.

After the budget, young people eagerly awaited public communication from the Department of
Basic Education (DBE) and National Treasury regarding the next steps for the launch of a new
phase of implementation, and therefore hiring. At the same time, on the ground, young people were looking forward to the recruitment of the next phase, but no confirmation was received. As months passed, people in the Youth Capital network started sharing posts advertising the recruitment of Phase 5 teacher assistants. Unfortunately, these posts were not genuine but scams; these types of scams are not limited to the BEEI, but are more likely to happen in the absence of legitimate information. ‘ There are several Facebook groups for teacher assistants with an average of 100 000
members, and their feed included various fraudulent recruitment posts. With no information
distributed since the end of February, it is understandable that there is a general sense of
anxiety about next steps’ adds Duncan-Williams.

SAYouth has been the preferred platform for public employment positions. However, in July fraudulent
job ads have infiltrated the platform too, so young people are unable to trust these posts either –
this news has received coverage in the media too. In general, young people have many
questions about what comes next for Teachers’ Assistants.

This delay is unacceptable.
We understand that the Presidency and the DBE have been held back from rolling out Phase 5
by the inefficiency of the Department of Employment and Labour in releasing the UIF funds
allocated by the National Treasury. In its communication with the Department, Youth Capital
has requested that the DEL urgently releases the funds for the BEEI and leverages its media platforms to communication about the application process.
‘Releasing the funds will allow the DBE to communicate openly with young people about the
next steps for Phase 5 of BEEI and warn young people about scam posts.’

As a campaign, Youth Capital is advocating for National Treasury to confirm the medium-term funding of the programme. Help us put pressure on the department by sending an email to Labour Minister Meth, Acting Dept DG Mjo and the UIF Commissioner Maruping here.