POLITICS

When the ANC talks about youth they mean black youth - Pieter Groenewald

FF Plus MP says apartheid was not right, but it cannot be blamed for everything, as the ANC perpetually tries to do

ANC disempowers South African youth

3 November 2015

The ANC government’s policy on youth in South Africa is nothing other than racism which discriminates against white youths and in reality it boils down to the disempowerment of the youth in the country and not their empowerment, Dr. Pieter Groenewald, chairperson of the FF Plus says.

Dr. Groenewald said during the debate on the empowerment of the youth of South Africa that the ANC is quick to blame the problems with education on apartheid and to brag about what they are doing in this regard.

He said that despite this, Zimbabwe’s president Robert Mugabe obtained a degree from the university of Fort Hare in the Eastern Cape while Dr. Mangosuthu Buthelezi of the IFP had obtained his doctorate from the University of Cape Town.

“Apartheid was not right, but it cannot be blamed for everything. Yet, this is all the ANC is doing because they are not capable to resolve problems themselves: Blame it on apartheid.

“The ANC comes here and brags about the opportunities they are creating to empower the youth. The reality is that the ANC promotes nothing other than racism. The ANC brags about bursaries that they offer the youth, but the reality is that when the ANC talks about youth, they mean black youth.

“If one wants to talk about problems that the youth experiences, one has to look at the core of the problem. And these problems start at basic education level.

“How is it possible that the minister of basic education is now already alluding to poor performances of matrics, saying that there is concern about the results as grade 11 learners who fail twice are merely pushed through to write their matric exams?

“This is nothing other than the lowering of standards. If the standards are lowered at basic education level, the youth is not empowered but they are disempowered. The white youth is further disempowered as government discriminates against them with affirmative action.

“If government is serious about empowering the youth, they have to become colour blind. Don’t let a white student have to meet more stringent requirements and maintain higher standards to be accepted into university. Don’t refuse bursaries just because a student is white.

“Children who were born after 1994 are already 21 years old today. How long does government still want to discriminate against them? The truth is that the youth at present is not being empowered but disempowered,” Dr. Groenewald said.

Statement issued by Dr. Pieter Groenewald, FF Plus Chairperson, 3 November 2015