CAPE TOWN - Finance Minister Tito Mboweni tabled the annual 2020 Budget on Wednesday the 26th of February 2020.
At the beginning of his address Mboweni proudly announces that the unemployment rate improved by 5 percentage points.
"Achieving economic growth and higher employment levels requires a plan," said the Finance Minister.
In his address the Finance Minister touched on all the initiatives that government has undertaken to create jobs in this country where 8.2 million young people between the ages of 15 and 34 are not in education, employment or training.
While speaking in Parliament Mboweni said that government is committed to helping all the people who are not receiving an education and to those who don't have jobs.
"Raising skills and improving the matching of young people and jobs is an important focus of the Presidential Youth Employment Intervention," said the Finance Minister.
According to Mbweni, to date, Jobs Fund projects have created more than 175000 permanent jobs, and helped 21000 people into internships and created 59900 short term jobs of which 65 percent went to youth.
Although no actual funds were allocated to the creation of jobs, Mboweni said, "As the President announced, we will reprioritise resources to raise spending on this critical area. We will start work immediately I will provide more details in the 2020 Medium Term Budget Policy Statement". The 2020 Medium Term Budget Policy Statement will take place later this year.
He added: "We intend to make this intervention a resounding success".
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