ANC’s Secretary-General Fikile Mbalula says job creation and training is amongst the party’s main priorities in shifting the lives of unemployed South Africans.
Mbalula was addressing the media during a door-to-door campaign at Amaoti in Inanda in the north of Durban.
With just over three weeks to go to the polls, the ruling party has deployed its National Executive Committee members to the highly contested KwaZulu-Natal province.
Amaoti residents have raised concerns about a lack of water, high crime rates, unemployment and electricity outages.
Mbalula says unemployment is contributing to crime as people are trying to make a living.
“Some of the opportunities include Presidential Stimulus Programs which [is] called PEP, that they can participate in. But we are implementing now even the R350, we are transforming it over time to become the basic income grant, which means whilst they are waiting and looking for job opportunities and still getting the R350, they will be getting training to prepare them for the job market. They will get the skill and be out of the system of R350 and all of that because they can do things for themselves. So, I was exposing them to some of the opportunities that are there.”
