The NYDA condemns the irresponsible attacks by Johanna Steenkamp and the DA

The National Youth Development Agency (NYDA) wishes to express its shock at the empty, ignorant and irresponsible comments made yesterday in parliament by Johanna Steenkamp, a fly by night ‘young leader' (see Sapa report).

In a clear demonstration of ignorance, Steenkamp yesterday told parliament that the NYDA leadership should be fired for squandering money while South Africa's youth is desperately in need of help and living in poverty. Steenkamp said more money should rather be pumped into bursary schemes to allow poor, deserving matriculants to pay for their higher education studies.

"Nothing could be more disingenuous and baseless than the call made by the DA representative," says Pillay. For the record, following the appointment of the new NYDA Board by His Excellency President Jacob in March 2013, the new Board set on a mission to reposition the NYDA and to make it more relevant and responsive to the needs of young people. Such a mission included a new vision for the NYDA which is to be "A Credible and Capable Development Agency for South Africa's Youth".

At the time Pillay said that, "This new vision is informed by the need to restore credibility to the NYDA and to be adequately capable of delivering as many opportunities as is possible with our available resources to the youth of South Africa."

As part of supporting this vision the new Board put in place a number of flagship programmes including the NYDA Entrepreneurship Grant Programme aimed at assisting young people who either want to start or expand their small businesses. To date 589 youth owned enterprises have been supported with grant finance amounting to more than R25 million in the past year alone. Through the R20 million NYDA Solomon Mahlangu Scholarship Fund, the NYDA has allowed 236 mostly rural young people to access higher education. This begs a question of whether Steenkamp has bothered to follow initiatives directed at the development of young people, or if she is simply speaking from an ivory tower with no clue of the realities on the ground.

Thousands of young people have been able to enroll in the NYDA's National Senior Certificate Matric rewrite programme which continues to record great successes helping thousands of learners obtain their National Senior Certificate. It may be worth reminding Steenkamp that while she asks for more money to be directed towards bursary schemes, this is exactly what government and its related agencies including the NYDA are doing. Government has invested the biggest amount of the fiscus to education.

The budget for the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) has increased substantially and almost tripled from R3.1 billion in 2009 to just over R9 billion in 2014 in order to keep pace with the increasing number of students who need assistance to attend public FET colleges and universities. More than 430,000 students would be assisted by NSFAS in 2014 across 25 public universities and 50 public further education and training colleges.

"We have a long way to go as a country if these are the kind of irresponsible and ignorant ‘leaders' we are going to produce. As the NYDA we will continue to intensify our work relating to leadership development and social cohesion and possibly try to educate detractors like Ms. Steenkamp."

The NYDA achieved its best ever performance in the 2013/2014 financial year, exceeding in 26 out of 28 key performance indicators as determined by Parliament. The change in perceptions of the NYDA also resulted in R86 million being sourced in donor funding allowing the agency to do more than initially envisaged. 975 507 young people received career guidance support, 38 063 young entrepreneurs were assisted with financial and non-financial support, and more than one million youth across the country were able to access valuable information about the multitude of opportunities provided by government.

"We are on a positive trajectory and we can only get better," said Pillay. "It is unfortunate that when the NYDA invited opposition political parties to input into vision and strategy of the NYDA and contribute constructively to our new strategy during a meeting on the 10 June 2014, the DA and Johanna Steenkamp in particular did not bother to attend despite having confirmed."

We however acknowledge that we have a lot more work to do as the NYDA. We have met our targets but have we not yet met expectations. We will continue to work tirelessly to meet the expectations of as many young South Africans as we possibly can, noting of course that we cannot solely meet the needs, interests and demands of the 22 million young South Africans below the age of 35. However, we encourage all to work together with the NYDA and focus on the issues of youth unemployment, poverty and inequality instead of advancing their own political careers.

Statement issued by Nawhal Kara-Foster, National Youth Development Agency, June 25 2014

Click here to sign up to receive our free daily headline email newsletter