Cape Town – President Cyril Ramaphosa is back in Parliament on Wednesday, where political parties will debate his economic recovery plan that promised to create hundreds of thousands of jobs, growing the economy by 3%, spending R1 trillion on infrastructure and hiring thousands of assistant teachers.
But Finance Minister Tito Mboweni has said the extension of the R350 special relief grant for the unemployed people would cost an additional R6 billion.
Mboweni has said they would have to reprioritise spending in the budgets of departments.
In outlining his plan on Thursday, Ramaphosa said he would create jobs for 800 000 people and hire 300 000 assistant teachers.
The South African Democratic Teachers Union (Sadtu) welcomed the decision to hire assistant teachers, but warned that they should not be used to teach as they were not qualified for this.
Ramaphosa said R40bn has been used as part of the top-up grants and this helped 17 million people.
The president said 6 million people have benefited from the R350 special relief grant for the unemployed. This comes at a time the economy shed 2.2 million jobs in the second quarter.
In the modelling done by the National Treasury, the economy will grow by 3% if the plan was implemented.
The plan amongst other things prioritises energy security supply and infrastructure investment.
Ramaphosa also said they will create 60 000 jobs for labour intensive maintenance and construction of municipal infrastructure and rural roads.
The government would also hire 6 000 community health workers and nursing assistants as part of the implementation of the National Health Insurance.
More than 40 000 "vulnerable teaching posts are being secured in schools which have lost income from fees".
Political Bureau