Applicants carrying placards during Panyaza Lesufi's address at Orlando Stadium in Soweto on 27 July 2023, before the handing over of 6 000 appointment offers to the first solar technician trainees. Picture: Nigel Sibanda
Whatever else you may think about Panyaza Lesufi, you cannot deny he is an astute and ambitious politician. So, it is easy to see his campaign to provide jobs for young people in Gauteng as part of his great plan for higher office.
Yet, it might be too easy to dismiss the Gauteng premier’s initiative as mere vote-grabbing.
There is a huge hunger for jobs – as evidenced by the fact that when the Gauteng government advertised for 8 000 jobs through Lesufi’s “Nasi Ispani” (here’s a job) programme, there were more than 1.2 million applicants.
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Getting jobs for young people has been repeatedly promised by all manner of ANC politicians, right up to President Cyril Ramaphosa. But, like all else in the ANC, there has been little or no delivery on those promises.
At least Lesufi is doing something, you have to give him that. However, it must also be said that some of the numbers bandied around by Lesufi don’t make much sense.
Take, for example, the 6 000 people who received appointment letters to “train” as solar power technicians. What will happen to them once they have completed their training?
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The Gauteng government does not run a major solar manufacturing plant or run installation teams, so there won’t be civil service jobs for them.
Will they then be made available to the private sector and won’t 6 000 technicians be way more than the private sector can accommodate?
Interestingly, at yesterday’s handover of appointment letters to thousands of hopefuls who gathered at Orlando Stadium in Soweto, there were already some signs of cracks in the system.
Scores of disgruntled people hired as interns complained the Gauteng government had not paid them the promised monthly stipend. We hope the rest of the project doesn’t end up in a similar shambles, because we need effort like this.
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