Jobs Fund still falling short of target

The government’s R9-billion Jobs Fund has hit a few snags since its establishment – from a lack of capacity to delays in finalising job-creation contracts and high staff turnover.

But the fund has managed to spend billions on job creation initiatives since its establishment two years ago, and hopes to create more than 100 000 jobs once various projects are up and running.

The fund was announced by President Jacob Zuma in 2011 to find solutions to South Africa’s high unemployment.

To date, the fund’s investment committee has approved 66 projects with a total of R3.4 billion in grant funding.

Briefing Parliament’s standing committee on appropriations yesterday, officials from the Jobs Fund gave examples of some of its successes, but also listed a number of challenges.

Chairman Elliot Sogoni said that all the committee wanted to know was where the R9bn had gone to over the years. “Where are we now in terms of spending? What number of jobs has been created, hoping that those jobs are sustainable?” asked Sogoni.

He raised concerns about how the fund had to account to a number of oversight committees with no clear reporting line. “As Parliament, we are worried about the progress on this. Maybe next time we can co-ordinate much better as Parliament,” said Sogoni.

Najwah Edries, who heads of the Jobs Fund in the National Treasury, said that they had completed two funding rounds and were midway through a third.

“There’s an excess of about R40bn circulating for job creation and we’re finalising that research to put it on our website. The criticism laid at the Jobs Fund is, where are the jobs? We’re finding projects taking up to a year to get themselves established,” said Edries.

She said each approved project was expected to achieve its jobs target within 36 months.

“To date, we’ve run three funding rounds. Maybe we were a tad too optimistic. It would be more feasible to allocate the budget over eight years as opposed to five, with 2011/12 being the establishment year,” said Edries.

She said that projects had promised to create 92 717 permanent jobs and to place a further 45 891 people into posts.

Edries noted that restructuring at the Development Bank of Southern Africa, which administered the fund, had also negatively impacted the fund’s programme through staff turnover. She said the volume of applications that required processing was also a major challenge.

ANC MP Alina Mfulo asked how it was possible to ensure that various projects remained sustainable. “And are you not duplicating what (the Small Enterprise Development Agency) and what the National Youth Development Agency are doing?” she asked.

Edries said the fund would explore more innovative funding models. - The Mercury