It is the end of an era for Jozi@Work patronage

During last year’s election campaign I was struck by how communities despised the unfairness of the City’s projects to provide short-term work opportunities under the banner of Jozi@Work.

Without fail, every community explained to me that these work opportunities were handed out on the basis of membership to the previous governing party. If you did not hold such a membership card, there was no real point in trying.

Each project was outsourced to a middle-man, known as a Capacity Support Agent (CSA), which effectively became a patronage network for the previous governing party. These CSA’s became rich overnight while many in our communities remained without work opportunities.

After a Mayoral Committee held last week, I am pleased to announce the end of an era of patronage with Jozi@Work.

We are currently beginning work on a new programme which will be unveiled to the residents of our City. This programme will be modelled on fairness and equal opportunity. It will involve:

- the removal of the CSA ‘Middle-Man’;
- the City employing community members directly;
- work opportunities being handed out fairly from a legitimate indigent register maintained by the City, against which people will have to apply on a yearly basis; 
- work opportunities being rotated amongst individuals on the indigents list in such a manner that more people benefit, and benefit equally and fairly; and 
- more residents benefitting under more co-ops, achieving greater levels of service delivery under the various departments.

An important component of this approach will be the impact upon the services experienced under this programme. The impact of more people in the programme under additional co-ops will ensure that the services rendered have a greater impact on communities.

The work to implement this new programme is projected to take six months, given that it is premised on the establishment of a credible indigents list. It is an indictment on the previous administration that we have inherited a situation where this City currently operates without such a list.

I have instructed the administration of the City to commence work on revising this programme and re-branding it so that it is no longer associated with patronage and unfairness of the past. The process of producing an accurate indigents list in our City, which will serve our efforts to assist the most vulnerable in our City beyond even this policy, has already been initiated.

We will take a report to Council, which will formally change Jozi@Work as our communities know it and loathe it, and I am confident we will enjoy the support of the majority of Council.

The process of migrating towards this new programme will be managed with sensitivity towards achieving seamless service delivery to our communities.

I maintain that we have to turn the economy of our City around and ensure that real work opportunities are created for our residents. However, while we work on this difficult task I insist that work opportunities generated by the City will be fair. These work opportunities will benefit the poorest of our City and not the overnight millionaires that the City seems to have prioritised in the past.

I look forward to announcing the launch of this new programme in the future, as the City begins a new era of bringing fairness and opportunity to our residents.

Statement issued by Herman Mashaba, Executive Mayor City of Johannesburg, 2 February 2017