South Africa earmarks $22bn of infrastructure projects to create jobs

JOHANNESBURG: South Africa has earmarked 360 billion rand ($21.95 billion) worth of infrastructure projects and has gotten commitment from lenders for 340 billion rand of funding, a top government official said on Monday.

"The project doesn't draw resources from the fiscus ... and will be self-funded by the private sector," said Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, head of the presidency's investment and infrastructure office.

He added that the government has already received commitments from several development finance institutions and multilateral organisations and financial closure could happen in the next three months.

South Africa, which was already in recession before the pandemic hit the country in March, is expected to see its economy contract by 7.3% in the current year and see millions of job losses.

The country had almost a third of its population of close to 60 million unemployed as of last year.

The new infrastructure initiative, spread across sectors such as water and sanitation, agriculture, roads, power and housing, will create 290,000 jobs across 55 projects, Ramokgopa said.

Many of these projects are currently in the development stage and financial closure and work on all the remaining would start over the next 90 days, he said.

Government officials in June held an infrastructure symposium to showcase 276 projects to investors that the government wants to develop to raise the potential economic growth rate and create jobs.