This statement follows an oversight visit by the Democratic Alliance (DA) Western Cape Premier Candidate, Alan Winde, DA Team One South Africa Spokesperson on Access to Jobs, Geordin Hill-Lewis and DA Youth Leader, Luyolo Mphithi to the I-CAN Centre in Elsies River.
Today, the DA conducted an oversight visit to the I-CAN Centre in Elsies River, Cape Town. The Centre, funded by the Western Cape Provincial Government, was established to equip residents with necessary skills to enter the job market.
We met with young people who told us how the Centre’s computer lab and creative zone have given them access to digital skills that they previously would never have been able to have.
The Centre has also done incredible work in providing entrepreneurs with digital services to professionalise their businesses.
South Africa is currently facing an unprecedented job crisis as unemployment now stands at a shocking 10 million. The fault for the country’s high unemployment rate falls squarely at the feet of the failing ANC government who have governed our economy into a recession.
The ANC has time and again proven that they lack the innovation and political will needed to solve the unemployment crisis.
Instead of addressing the challenges millions of South Africans face in accessing jobs, the ANC hosts talk shops and job summits which amount to nothing.
Where the Democratic Alliance governs, we create an environment in which people can take advantage of opportunities to enhance and develop skills which will improve their access to employment. DA-led governments consistently deliver the lowest unemployment rate and create the most jobs in the country.
Initiatives such as the I-CAN centre are one of the reasons the City of Cape Town was able to grow employment by 5% in the last quarter despite an unprecedented drought.
The Western Cape created more than 75% of all the new jobs in South Africa in the first quarter of 2018. In the DA-governed City of Johannesburg, 109 000 jobs were created in the first two quarters of the year reducing the unemployment rate in the City by 1.5%.
This is proof of the DA difference, we do not just talk big, we get the job done.
The DA is the only party with a plan to create fair access to real, long-term jobs across South Africa.
When elected to national government, we will focus on:
- Introducing a Voluntary National Service – one year of income and skills development for school leavers.
- Creating job centres throughout South Africa that provide information, advice and free internet to job-seekers.
- Growing small business opportunities through increased funding assistance and removing blockage and red-tape
- Prosecuting and eliminating the practice of “sex for jobs” and carpet interviews;
- Prosecuting and eliminating the practice of “cash for jobs” and corruption in allocating jobs.
Unemployment is a waste of human potential and only our plan will give unemployed South Africans the dignity of having a job. The DA is committed to building One South Africa for All; a country in which all people have fair access to jobs and opportunities.
