NYDA asleep on the job of job-creation: Annual Report 

1 October 2014 

The National Youth Development Agency (NYDA)'s 2013/14 Annual Report, tabled in Parliament yesterday, reveals that the Agency is asleep on the job of job-creation. 

It is not doing enough to address the crisis of youth unemployment and poor skills outcomes in South Africa, the full extent of which was documented in a recent StatsSA report.

Instead of ploughing resources into economic participation and skills development programmes for the youth, the NYDA is more interested in ploughing fat pay cheques into the back pockets of its top- and senior managers.

The Annual Report reveals that in 2013/14, the NYDA:

Blew R168.5 million of its R393 million state grant (or 43%) on salaries for 386 employees, which equates to an average personnel cost per employee of over R436 000;

Paid an average salary of R1.6 million to its top management team;

Coughed up almost R21 million on salaries for its bloated complement of 19 senior managers, at an average personnel cost per employee of nearly R1.1 million

And, despite the NYDA's protestations to the contrary, the situation only seems to be getting worse. In 2014/15, the wage bill has climbed to R189million, or 46% of the NYDA's total R408 million grant. 

The Agency claims to have embarked on a turnaround strategy that will result in a reduction of the wage bill. But so far there has been no evidence of it. 

The NYDA's two main key performance areas (KPAs) are, firstly, economic participation, and, secondly, education and skills development.

However, its Annual Report reveals the following glaring failures on part of the Agency. In 2013/14, the NYDA:

Enrolled only 568 of a targeted 3 000 young people (or 19%) in its much-vaunted Matric Rewrite programme;

Underachieved by 42 023 (or 42%) its target of supporting 100 000 young people through job-preparedness programmes; and

Supported 0 of a targeted 37 975 youth-owned enterprises through grant funding (which failure it ascribes to an error of wording in its Annual Performance Plan).

The NYDA purports to have created 3 370 jobs through grant funding and business development services, but offers no evidence of what these jobs were, in which sector they were created, and the duration of employment.

At any rate, it is a drop in the vast ocean of youth unemployment, which StatsSA calculates at 36%, but which is much higher when discouraged jobseekers are taken into account. 

The NYDA's 2013/14 Annual Report provides further confirmation that the Agency should be scrapped.

The DA will continue to lobby for the NYDA's entire grant to be channeled towards the youth wage subsidy and effective skills development programmes.

Doing so will provide better bang for the taxpayers' buck and is likely to make a greater dent in our spiraling youth unemployment rate.

Statement issued by Dr Michael Cardo MP, DA Shadow Deputy Minister in the Presidency, October 1 2014

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