THE ANC YL YOUTH LEAGUE IS LOOSING CONFIDENCE ON THE MINISTER OF FINANCE:
The African National Congress Youth League is gradually loosing confidence in the unelected Minister of Finance, Pravin Gordham. The Minister continues to behave as if he is the only person who understands the developmental problems and challenges of South Africa. The ANC has since 2005 agreed on mainstreaming youth development and establishment of a National Youth Development Agency to respond to the aspirations and interests of young people.
In 2007, the ANC 52nd National Conference, the ANC resolved to establish the NYDA. In 2008, the National Assembly adopted an Act of Parliament which effectively merged the National Youth Commission, Umsombomvu Youth Fund and 9 Provincial Youth Commissions into a unitary National Youth Development Agency. The Act compels the NYDA to respond to many youth development challenges in South Africa, including through provision of youth information and advisory services, coordination of the national youth service programme, management of a national youth fund, which ought to fund youth entrepreneurial initiatives, and advocating for youth development in all spheres of society.
In the 2010 State of the Nation address, the President of the Republic indicated that government has "directed the agency to work faster to establish its structures, throughout the country, so that it can assist us to mainstream youth development programmes within government". This means amongst other tings that the NYDA should speedily establish NYDA offices and delivery centres across all municipalities (approximately 280) before the next State of the Nation Address. Despite these many intentions, young people in South Africa continue to be the most affected by high levels of poverty and unemployment. Young people constitute more than 70% of the unemployed population. Instead of channelling funds to what the ANC has agreed upon as a better model of youth development, Pravin Gordham comes with some uncanvassed, clumsy proposals on how the country should deal with youth development. How a Minister in the ANC government could ignore long standing resolutions of the ANC in favour some clumsy options escapes our logic.
This Minister of Finance has decided to allocate R340 million budget to a youth development institution (NYDA) which includes the former National Youth Commission, Umsombomvu Youth Fund, 9 Provincial Youth Commissions and expected to establish delivery centres in more than 280 Municipalities. It is quite clear that this Minister wants to strangle the NYDA before it even responds to the aspirations and challenges of young people in South Africa. The Minister and his department have consistently refused to listen to detailed plans and programmes from the NYDA on how young people's lives should be improved, yet ready to present some neo-liberal programmes which will end up turning youth into casual labourers for big capitalists.
The ANC YL will in the next meeting with the leadership of the ANC strongly raise our concerns with the Minister of Finance, whom we cannot seem to locate because he is not accessible and not in leadership structures of the ANC. The ANC Youth League will forever be impatient with government bureaucrats who ignore the suffering of young people in South Africa and instead choose to be creative with the mandate of the African National Congress.
Statement issued by the ANC Youth League, March 10 2010
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