YCLSA's reaction to the State of the Nation Address

The Young Communist League of South Africa [uFasimba] welcomes the State of the Nation Address [SoNA] as delivered by the state President, His Excellency Jacob Zuma, last night [Thursday February 12, 2015] during their Joint Sitting of Parliament. As the YCLSA we of the view that as South Africa we are on the right track and we have renewed faith that the African National Congress [ANC] government is taking the country forward.

Firstly we would like to condemn the disruption that took place last night in parliament. We are utterly disgusted by the theatrics by both the Economic Freedom Fighters [EFF] and its bedfellows the Democratic Alliance [DA]. Their behaviour last night was not only despicable it was also revolting.

It is shameful that people tasked by voters with the responsibility of representing them in government can behave in such a horrendous manner. We feel sorry for those who voted for the hooligans to be their representatives and to champion their interests. We call for all to respect the rules of parliament as such inexcusable behaviour has no place in our democracy.

Unemployment

Unemployment continues to plague young people especially those between the ages of 18 to 35. As the YCLSA we continue to call for the scrapping of the Youth Wage Subsidy. The Youth Wage Subsidy does not present any possibility of dealing with the scourge of unemployment in the country as of January 1, 2014.

We call on government to immediately terminate the failed youth wage subsidy and redirect the R5 billion over three years to fund more bursaries, scholarships and youth development programmes. The Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit at the University of Cape Town has proven beyond reasonable doubt that the youth wage subsidy is set to fail.

We however welcome the creation of jobs in the environmental sector. Government has created thirty thousand work opportunities and plans to create another sixty thousand in the next financial year. We call on Government to measures in place to compel the private sector to prioritise localised reinvestment and job creation especially in mining and agriculture.

We applaud the NYDA for funding more than 765 youth owned micro enterprises in the last financial year. More funding is needed to establish you cooperatives, SMME's, township and rural enterprises.

As the YCLSA we continue to call for the total banning of labour brokers in South Africa. The regulation of labour brokers has not in any way yielded results and capitalists continue to exploit the working class to maximise their profits. We however welcome the intention by the Department of labour to review the sectoral determinations of agriculture, forestry, private security, wholesale and retail sector.

Nine Point Plan

We welcome the nine point plan by our government to push our economy forward. We are more impressed by the intention to resolve the energy crisis, revitalising agriculture, advancing beneficiation of mineral wealth and unlocking the potential of cooperatives.

We call for a bottom-up approach of youth enterprise and cooperatives to deal with the issue of youth unemployment. Government must look into the nationalisation of SASOL and ARCELLO-Mittal. The possibility of creating a national steel company must be looked into as well. We need to ensure that we have enough production capacity to meet the 70% local procurement commitment.

Land

We welcome the decision not to allow foreign nationals to own land in South Africa. Most of our people don't have access to land 20 years into our nascent democracy and it is very imperative that this matter is dealt with speedily. We call on government to scrap the ‘willing buyer, willing seller' policy and quickly establish the office of the Valuer-General.

We applaud the allocation of more than ninety thousand hectors of land to small holders farms, farm dwellers and labour tenants though the Land Reform Programme. We call on government to also speedily open the second window of opportunity for people to lodge land claims. More land should be made available for agricultural purposes instead of building shopping malls.

Energy

We call on our government to speed up the process of building power stations and for Eskom to do proper maintenance on their infrastructure. The recent re-emergence of power cuts has the potential to further perpetrate service delivery protests. We condemn the hiking of prices by Eskom and NERSA. Government must continue to look at alternative source of energy like nuclear, hydropower and wind.

Statement issued by Khaya Xaba, YCLSA head officer, February 13 2015

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