The IFP in KwaZulu-Natal has lambasted the ANC-led government for failing to deliver on its job creation promises.
“Twenty years into democracy we can’t say we have a good story to tell as people don’t have jobs and are living in poverty. Fact is, many people are unemployed, including young people and our streets are full of unemployed and educated people who don’t know where to utilise their education and acquired skills. When the ANC was canvassing for votes, many jobs were promised to the unemployed youth. But now after taking power, they reversed their promises on job creation and tell our young people to create jobs for themselves through entrepreneurship. One wonders how you can promise people non-existent jobs? Was this merely bait to hook the voters?” said IFP Leader in the KwaZulu-Natal Legislature, Mr Blessed Gwala, MPL.
“The ANC relies only on temporary expanded public works jobs to bolster employment figures. By continuing to rely on the Expanded Public Works Programme to create jobs that last only a few weeks or months will create neither the number of permanent new jobs that we need, nor the quality of job opportunities that are urgently needed to lift poor South Africans out of the cycle of poverty. The ANC must create decent, sustainable jobs not temporary jobs. Labour brokers must be abolished because we don’t want our people to be exploited,” continued Mr Gwala.
“To grow our country’s economy and create jobs, the IFP is determined to balance job creation and job protection by revising labour laws to allow for more flexibility. This will generate investment, create new jobs and promote growth in the economy. We will take politics out of the economy – union politics should not hold our economic future at ransom. We will partner with the mining and related sectors to refine raw materials in South Africa and develop our processing and manufacturing industries to produce finished products on our soil instead of importing products manufactured abroad with our raw materials. To do this we will develop skills suitable for today’s job market by sourcing funds for training programmes, apprenticeships and learnerships – this vision will ensure skills transfer and create sustainable jobs which will in turn grow our economy,” concluded Mr Gwala.
