Government\u2019s R4-billion-a-year Community Work Programme (CWP) is supposed to give a leg up to South Africa\u2019s most marginalised communities.<\/p>\n
But many suspect it has become a feeding scheme for family and friends connected to the department of co-operative governance and traditional affairs (Cogta) and for its implementing agents.<\/p>\n
\u201cMost of the people that benefit from CWP are family and friends of these officials that already have jobs \u2013 paying jobs,\u201d Velaphi Ndaba, a CWP site manager in Gauteng, alleges.<\/p>\n
Like this story? Be an amaB Supporter<\/a> to help us do more. Sign up for our newsletter<\/a> to get more.<\/em><\/p>\n The CWP provides temporary work and training to 259 000 people across the country \u2013 at a cost of R13-billion for the current three-year cycle.<\/p>\n Although the CWP is funded by Cogta, it is run by 11 non-profit organisations that manage sites in 213 municipalities across the country.<\/p>\n These implementing agents are responsible for procuring tools, materials, protective clothing and training. But as it is public money, they must appoint suppliers in a way that is \u201cfair, equitable, transparent, competitive and cost-effective\u201d.<\/p>\n As Ndaba sees it, there are \u201cthree mafias\u201d \u2013 three favoured politically-connected implementing agents \u2013 that extract millions through these contracts, to the detriment of deserving small suppliers and the communities that are supposed to benefit from the CWP.<\/p>\n A supplier from Gauteng, who asked to remain anonymous out of concern for their business and their safety, echoed this sentiment. \u201cWe end up sending hundreds of [bids] for no results. [In 2018] I used 35 reams of paper \u2013 seven boxes, fives reams in a box \u2013 in a seven-month period. I kept sending, sending, [responding to] every advert.\u201d<\/p>\n While some implementing agents were fair, they said, others simply shut the door: \u201cMaybe I sent out 30 requests and got two, unlike some you send out 100 and got nothing. Most of these other guys their phones don\u2019t even go through.\u201d<\/p>\n Upcoming investigations by amaBhungane and Daily Dispatch has found evidence that an implementing agent in the Eastern Cape awarded contracts for tools, materials and training to companies run by staff and family members, while CWP workers went without tools and even shoes.<\/p>\n In October last year, two months after we started asking questions, Cogta quietly appointed Johannesburg-based MNS Attorneys to conduct a forensic investigation into the avalanche of allegations emerging about the programme.<\/p>\n MNS, which also conducted an investigation into state capture at Transnet, has been tasked with investigating \u201cboth current and previous CWP contracts\u201d and \u201cissues relating to irregular appointment of suppliers\u201d, MNS director Nkosenhle Mzinyathi confirmed.<\/p>\n But a secretly-recorded meeting suggests that Cogta knew that the programme was plagued with corruption for at least two years and seemingly took no action.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is also a lot of thuggery that is taking place,\u201d George Seitisho, then Cogta\u2019s acting deputy director general in charge of the CWP, told implementing agents at a meeting in 2017.<\/p>\n