Skills & EducationproposedMedium TermPublic Works and Infrastructure

Expanded Public Works Programme Reform: Towards Skills Pathways

Theme: employment_and_skills

First raisedAug 2022Last discussedAug 2022Dormant — not discussed in 12+ months

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Assessment

Growth Impact3/5

Feasibility3/5

Responsible: Department of Public Works and Infrastructure

Feasibility Assessment

EPWP creates temporary employment but minimal upward mobility. The skills linkage has always been weak in practice — DBE, DHET, and DPWI have different mandates and incentives. The QCTO and CIDB integration is technically feasible but requires coordination that has repeatedly failed. Without reform, EPWP remains a political job-creation number, not a development programme.

Stakeholder Landscape

Who backs this reform, who needs convincing, and which interests or red lines shape political feasibility.

Reviewer

Open review workspace

Backers

1 stakeholders

Negotiation weight

0 conditional actors

Opposition weight

0 opposing actors

Review coverage

0/1

All mapped stance notes are still draft

Provenance warning

Every mapped stakeholder stance for this idea is still draft. The coalition score is directional only until at least the high-influence actors are reviewed.

Coalition Read

100/100Coalition-ready

Anchor: COSATU.

Political Tractability

—Needs reviewed signals

No reviewed signals · 0% of mapped influence has been reviewed.

Backers1 stakeholder

COSATUCoalition anchordraftInfluence 9/10

COSATU supports EPWP reform toward skills pathways as a mechanism for labour-intensive public employment.

Interest: Worker protections under the Labour Relations Act and Basic Conditions of Employment Act; collective bargaining rights; equitable wage growth; just tr…

Concern: Labour market flexibility reforms that erode LRA and BCEA protections; Eskom unbundling without adequate just transition planning for NUM members; pri…

Engagement path: Meaningful social dialogue through NEDLAC before structural reforms are finalised; just transition funding ring-fenced in MTEF; skills retraining and…

Description

The Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP) has created over 14 million work opportunities since 2004, primarily in labour-intensive construction, environmental care, and social sector activities, but has been criticised for offering short-term, low-wage employment with minimal skills transfer and for susceptibility to political patronage at municipal level. Reform proposals include linking EPWP participation to formal artisan training under TVET college or SETA frameworks, establishing minimum training hours and certification requirements per project, and shifting the programme toward infrastructure maintenance where community-based workers can develop durable skills. The PC on Public Works' BRRRs flag inconsistent reporting and absence of post-EPWP employment outcome data as persistent governance gaps.

OECD

Referenced in OECD Economic Surveys: South Africa

OECD SA Survey (2017, 2022, 2025). Related reform area identified across OECD surveys.