Johannesburg — THE government has paid more than R3bn in wages to unemployed people participating in its expanded public works programme. It will comfortably exceed its target of 1- million job opportunities over five years by the time the first phase of the programme ends next year.

The government now wants to expand and improve the Expanded Public Works Programme . Public Works Minister Thoko Didiza said this week, at a seminar on the way forward for the programme, that "by the time the next administration takes over we will have a well-constructed programme".

Didiza said the government wanted to see if it was possible to bring private sector partners in to work with the government to expand the programme.

It was also looking at whether it was possible to alter existing municipal budgets for core functions such as waste and environmental management so that they created more employment opportunities.

One of the "tensions" being debated was whether the government should be less ambitious about training targets set for the programme if this meant it could create more jobs. Wage levels were also under review.

In its first four years to end-April this year, the programme delivered just over 1-million work opportunities, but their average length was shorter than anticipated and the income per beneficiary was smaller, public works department chief director Stanley Henderson said .

Just over half of those opportunities were in infrastructure construction, with the rest in environmental, social and economic activities. The social sector of the programme, which includes activities such as early childhood educare and home-based care for people living with AIDS, is well ahead of its five-year target, having creating 150000 opportunities. These tend to be much longer than the other programme jobs and some at the seminar suggested these would more appropriately be permanent public sector posts. But the minimum public sector wage is about R60000 a year - five times the wage paid in the programme.