Ramaphosa: Govt a 'trailblazer' in youth employment schemes
President Cyril Ramaphosa believes the Presidential Youth Employment Initiative and Expanded Public Works Programme have turned the country into a “trailblazer in public employment initiatives”.
On Tuesday, Ramaphosa visited Pretoria to engage with the beneficiaries of the Presidential Youth Employment Intervention and Presidential Employment Stimulus programmes.
Ramaphosa said nearly two million young people have thus far benefited from the initiatives.
“It is a phenomenal programme that has been able to bring in more than two million young people since COVID times, and we have seen how successful it was. It is an overarching programme that covers almost all our 25,000 schools.”
Ramaphosa said the Presidency is working on strengthening the programme, which the Basic Education and Employment and Labour departments already support.
“It is beneficial to young people who have never had jobs, so we bring them into formal job situations and they learn, gain knowledge, discipline and people skills,” Ramaphosa said.
He said that although the government lacked the resources to offer longer programmes, those who participated in them would be more employable.
“With the EPWP, we became trailblazers in many, many ways because a number of countries started to look at public employment and how we execute it.”
He added that although the Extended Public Works Programme has weaknesses, there has never been any corruption.
“There have never been funny processes; it has been flawless.”
