LETTER: Setting the record straight on Nasi iSpani

“Decoding Lesufi’s Jobs Scam” by Justice Malala (Home & Abroad, August 17-23) refers. The article denounces a solid and comprehensive government employment programme, and paints me negatively.

The Nasi iSpani programme is part of “Growing Gauteng Together 2030”, a strategy adopted in 2019 to create an economically inclusive Gauteng city region. We want to position the province as a place of opportunities and grow its economy from R1.7-trillion to R3-trillion, halving unemployment to reach 15% by the end of the decade.

Six months ago, I committed the province to directly employ 152,000 young people this financial year. This recruitment programme has made more than 30,000 job opportunities available to young people.

There is a reason some funded vacant posts had not been filled in the past few years. After Covid, the provincial government had to reconfigure its budget to deal with the disaster and focus on saving lives. This happened on the back of budget cuts, public service salary adjustments and a volatile economic climate.

As Gauteng is the nation’s economic centre, it imposes a responsibility on the administration to champion employment creation pragmatically, rather than ideologically. In an age of automation and mechanisation, assuming that the private sector is the only sector to create jobs is naive at best.

We are creating a conducive environment for the private sector to thrive, tackling problems such as crime, infrastructure decay and the energy crisis. For example, we recently convened an energy indaba to find and ensure a reliable energy supply, and invested R1.2bn in pursuit of this.

Our commitment to promoting private sector investment is also evident in special economic zones such as OR Tambo and Tshwane Automotive, as well as the proposed Vaal and West Rand zones. They offer incentives such as infrastructure funding, duty-free imports and tax exemptions to investors. Our projections show we are likely to attract R20bn in investment and create 50,000 jobs in these zones by 2030.

Malala declares Nasi iSpani a scam and says the motivation is the upcoming national elections. But there are elections every 36 months, and we can’t just cancel service delivery for these. He endorses EFF leader Julius Malema's outlandish conspiracy theories about the Nasi iSpani programme without evidence.

In an environment of less talk and more work, it's understandable that some will find themselves disorientated. 

Panyaza Lesufi
Gauteng premier

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