Government departments, forming part of the Economic Sectors and Employment Cluster, would present their employment strategies to Parliament on March 9, Rural Development and Land Reform Minister Gugile Nkwinti, who chairs the cluster, said on Thursday.

With only 41% of South Africa’s working-age adults employed, government is moving to step up job-growth efforts, with a goal of creating another five-million jobs by 2020, as set out in the New Growth Path.

Speaking at the cluster briefing on the implementation of employment strategies, Economic Development Minister Ebrahim Patel described 2011 as “year one” where the government would focus on building a strong basis to support its employment drive.

He added that government would concentrate on enhancing and expanding the country’s skill base and building the right infrastructure to set up the correct platform for increasing South Africa’s production capacity and creating a sustainable employment environment.

Nkwinti also pointed out that although public employment schemes and subsidies would be important to create job opportunities in the short term, private sector employment would be critical in the longer run.

“For this reason, the cluster’s proposals will centre largely on how government policies and programmes can do more to encourage growth in sectors that can generate employment on a large scale and creating an enabling policy environment to accommodate such growth.”

Job-driving sectors that would be focused on included infrastructure, manufacturing, the mining value chain, the agricultural value chain, the green economy, tourism and other services.

Trade and Industry Minister Rob Davies said at the briefing that investment in infrastructure would drive local manufacturing capacity and the latest Industrial Policy Action Plan (Ipap2).

The implementation of Ipap2 had already seen several successes securing R13-billion in private sector investment commitments and the creation and retention of 24 000 jobs in the automotive sector, as a result of an improved regulatory environment and support to investors.

Davies noted that while construction had experienced a bit of a lag after the high levels of activity preceding the FIFA World Cup, the sector would experience a significant pick up this year as big infrastructure projects in sectors such as transport and electricity were getting under way.

He added that government had been struggling with “lumpy” procurement processes and that a strong focus would be placed on a public-private procurement regime going forward, with an emphasis on local content.

Also, Davies said that government would be looking at cutting red tape to ease the flow of business in the country.

“The government will engineer itself to meet public obligations through the necessary regulation while simplifying other processes where possible and removing unnecessary procedures,” added Patel.

A big part of ensuring that South Africa is able to increase its production and industrial capacity would be reliant on its ability to secure its energy supply.

The country had to cut electricity supply to industry, during the height of the commodities boom in 2007/8, after Eskom ran out of capacity.

Energy Minister Dipuo Peters said the final version of the Integrated Resource Plan (IRP2010), that was due in April, would lay down how South Africa could meet its electricity needs going forward.

She said that it was clear that South Africa could not grow its local economy within an energy-constrained environment.

“In addition, industry will also be encouraged to start generating their own power, especially for large projects that the grid cannot always provide for, such as beneficiation.”

South Africa is busy with a number of prefeasibility and feasibility studies to expand on its current limited beneficiation capacity.

Patel said while the country was involved in some beneficiation such as coal, platinum and iron-ore, it was not nearly enough.

Currently, the State is studying the feasibility of developing what it terms the world’s first integrated metals plant capable of beneficiating titanium, zirconium, vanadium, magnesium and silicon.

Should the project prove viable, it would involve an investment of R15-billion and could create more than 7 000 jobs in construction, as well as in the operation of the plant.

Davies commented that Africa was still exporting the larger portion of its minerals in raw form. “Our minerals will not hold forever, and we need to reap the additional benefits of this wealth.”

He added that whereas South Africa now received $400/t for the titanium sands that it exports, it would receive $100 000/t if it was able to export titanium alloys.