Cape Town - More than R1.87 billion in grant funding was approved by the R9 billion Jobs Fund in its first year and complemented by a further R1.78 million from the private sector, to support 41 projects, says Minister of Finance Pravin Gordhan.
In all, over R3.6 billion was committed to Jobs Funds projects between April last year and February this year, figures provided by Gordhan reveal, in a written response late last week to a parliamentary question on the Jobs Fund raised by a member of the opposition.
Gordhan said the share between the state and the private sector translated to an average of 95c by the private sector for every R1 committed by the National Treasury.
The fund, which is managed by the Development Bank of South Africa (DBSA), will run for another two years - until 2014. So far it has held two funding rounds, with the last one running from April to May this year.
Gordhan said by end September 2012, R320 million would have been transferred by the National Treasury to the DBSA.
The R1.8 billion approved by the DBSA will be disbursed in tranches over the agreed terms of the projects, he said.
In all, R870 million or 46.5% of all the Jobs Fund approvals went to organisations running 16 enterprise development projects, with these organisations also adding a further R816.9 million in funding.
The remainder of funds were allocated to 20 projects to support work seekers (R548 million, with a further R760.6 million committed by the organisations running the projects), four to help build institutional capacity (R404.4 million, with a further R128.4 from the organisations) and one project of R50 million in infrastructure investment (with a further R75 million from the funded organisation).
Following the first round those organisations which obtained funding projected they would create 10 344 new permanent jobs and 39 873 short-term jobs over the next three years, with a further 36 729 having successfully completed training, as a result of the funded initiatives. - SAnews.gov.za
