EASTERN FREE STATE
TEL: 058 3035411
WEDNESDAY 26 JUNE 2013
WWW.EXPRESSNEWS.CO.ZA
FREE
ON DUTY: Some of the people who have been employed by the Thabo Mofutsanyana District Municipality under the Extended Public Works Programme (EPWP) working in the park at the Petsana township near Reitz. Photo: Tladi Moloi
A job – for 12 months } Tladi Moloi
IN an effort to reduce poverty, the Thabo Mofutsanyana District Municipality has employed 80 people in the Extended Public Works Programme (EPWP). People benefiting from the programme are from the Maluti-a-Phofung and Nketoane Municipality. Forty of them are cleaning the streets in Reitz while the others strive to keep Qwaqwa clean.
According to Matefu Mokoena, communications manager at the Thabo Mofutsanyana District, all of them had signed the 12-month contract. He said they had started working in January. However, most of the people have pleaded with the municipality to employ them on a full- time basis sighting different reasons for this. They said they had families to look after and asked what would happen
to them if their contracts came to an end. Mokoena said they wished they were able to give the people permanent jobs, but due to limited financial resources they were unable to do so, hence the issue of job creation should be handled jointly by the government and the private sector. Mokoena said the EPWP guideline was to pay R66,45 per day, but they had decided to make it R80. He said the local municipality were the ones
who had identified the people. Dimakatso Miya (31) said: “I want to thank our district for giving us this opportunity. Even though we are going to work for 12 months only, at least they have done something for us.” Miya, who hailed from the Petsana location near Reitz, said she was happy with the salary that she had been receiving and added that she had been buying things out of her pocket. “I am mother to two children aged
nine and one. We live with my mother who is a pensioner. “I wish the municipality can extend our contracts or make them permanent jobs so that we can work for our kids,” she said. Mojalefa Mphuthi (30), who worked as a security guard a few years ago, said: “They tried, but what irritated me was when they made late payments. We have accounts to pay and if we don’t pay on an agreed date, they penalise us.”