The infrastructure sector is led by the Department of Public Works (DPW). The Department also collaborates with the Departments of: Transport; Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs; Water Affairs; Mineral Resources; and Energy.

The Infrastructure sector involves the use of labour-intensive methods in the construction and maintenance of public sector funded infrastructure projects. Labour intensive infrastructure projects under the EPWP entail:

• using labour-intensive construction methods to provide work opportunities to local unemployed people;
• providing training and skills development to the locally unemployed people; and
• building cost effective and quality assets.

Most projects are implemented by the provinces and municipalities. While all provinces and 99% of municipalities are already contributing to the EPWP, many provincial departments and municipalities could increase their contribution further and the continued growth of the sector will depend on the degree to which some of the underperforming provinces and municipalities can increase their performance by implementing their projects more labour intensively and by establishing dedicated labour intensive maintenance programmes which have the potential to provide regular employment to large numbers of people, especially in rural areas.

The key EPWP Infrastructure programmes include:

• Vuk’uphile: pertains to training of individuals in labour intensive methods of construction to become contractors at NQF level 2 and supervisors at NQF level 4,
• National Youth Service: A year-long skills training and development intervention. It aims to provide unemployed youth with technical skills and life skills training, access to practical work experience and mentoring;
• Large Projects: these are projects with a minimum budget of R30m or more. Ensure that delivery of large budgets projects will be based on EPWP principles and ensure meaningful development of emerging contractors; and
• Provincial Roads: In the Provincial roads programme, assistance is provided to Provincial Roads Departments to help them implement projects and programmes labour-intensively. The support provided to Provincial roads departments is done in partnership with the National Department of Transport. The focus in the Provincial roads programme is on rural access roads.

In addition, DPW provides technical support to assist them to: design and implement programmes/ projects labour intensively and to report on EPWP projects.