Public Works Minister Geoff Doidge on Tuesday defended the government's expanded works programme (EPWP), calling it "a programme that works".

"EPWP is a programme that works," Doidge said at a social development cluster briefing. "We must stop making it what it is not.

"The 482 742 jobs that you said we wouldn't achieve have been achieved in the following sectors... infrastructure... 217 527, the environment and culture sector... 66 040, social... 165 466 and the non-State sector... 33 709."

The EPWP has been widely questioned, with doubts over the 482 742 "work opportunities" it had created. Work opportunities are considered to be "any period of paid employment".

"Questions arose about the duration of the jobs," Doidge said.

"If you look at the Zibambele programme in [KwaZulu-Natal, which accounts for 40 000 of jobs... The same programme rolled out in Eastern Cape and Mpumalanga, which contributes 20 000...

"These are projects started by provincial governments and local governments, where they offer 100 days of employment spread over two days a week.

"If you look at the Working for Water programme... and them going into and forming co-ops and contractors where they contract back to different spheres and beyond that...

"They built into that entrepreneurial skills and management..."

Doidge said that EPWP was a very specific programme which "targets the unskilled and those not being absorbed by the normal job market".

"We are watching very closely as to whether we are achieving those targets," Doidge said. "It is very important for us to make sure we are on track to halving poverty by 2014."

The government, he said, was looking for labour intensive projects in all its programmes.

"We want to make sure we get maximum labour absorption into those projects," he said.