African National Congress Youth League Statement
1 October 2015
The ANC Youth League has recently emerged from its congress under which unity and robust debate was the order of the day. We have been able to move with speed in our program to ensure that we build unity within the organization. We have had a successful 71stBirthday celebration program through the Month of September. We are happy with the reception we have received from Mpumalanga the Eastern Cape and Gauteng during our Birthday Month Celebration. We regrettably note the wrong media reports that insinuate the ANCYL President was booed in the Eastern Cape. We would like to clearly state that the president was not booed but in fact received a warm reception from the Youth Leaguers of Eastern Cape in O.R Tambo Region.
The ANCYL NEC will for the next four days hold its strategy session to deal with induction, election strategy and development of a program of action towards the implementation of our resolutions. This session will also inform our strategy as the ANCYL towards the NGC of the ANC. We are seriously strategizing our approach to ensure that the ANC adopts the 40% Youth Deployment Representation in all legislative deployments starting with the upcoming local government elections. We will also lobby the ANC to adopt a policy of that should see to the scraping of E-Tolls. The ANC is the organization of the people and it should therefore listen to the people when they say they do not want E-Tolls we must investigate other means to fund massive infrastructure projects that the ANC led government has continued to carry out in the quest to improve the lives of our people.
We are happy that the ANC has won 8 out of 11 B-elections that were held yesterday. This indeed proves that the people of this country still believe that the ANC remains the only organization positioned to take forward the plight of our people to free them from the historical bondages of poverty and inequality. We are particularly pleased with results of ward 11 in the Western Cape in Theewaterkloof where we took a ward from the Democratic Alliance and Mlalazi Municipality in Kwazulu Natal where we have taken away a ward from the IFP.
The ANCYL does not support corruption and it will never support corruption because corruption destroys the state. While we support the initiative represented by a broad front of organizations we are however deeply concerned with the people who led the corruption march. A person like Zwelinzima Vavi has no moral authority to lead such a march. He had no right to claim to be a saint whilst not so long he behaved in a corrupt manner and degraded and brought disrepute to COSATU house when he had sex with a Junior Employee in COSATU HOUSE. To date he has not shown remorse for the despicable act of immorality.
Because COSATU is a revolutionary organization it was left with no option but to take steps against Vavi and he left the organization in disgrace, he has no right to lead corruption marches whilst he is an epitome of corruption through notorious sex scandals he must firstly cleanse himself before he can even make mention of the word corruption.
Julius Malema has not right to ride a high horse of being custodians of all that is correct whilst he continues to misappropriate funds of the EFF which has even resulted in their offices being closed. One wonders what he would do to public funds if given a chance when he loots funds from his own organization. The presence of such individuals have reduced the march to nothing but a publicity stunt to try and portray the ANC as a corrupt organization. The ANC remains the champion of anti-corruption and remains committed to the creation of the National Democratic Society.
As the ANCYL we reaffirm our role as a militant and disciplined organization that will never sellout the plight of young people. We will not be deterred, we will remain resolute in our task to fearlessly push for radical transformation of our society. It is in this spirit that the ANCYL will make sure that there is transformation in formations like the NYDA. In as much as we appreciate the clean audit received by the NYDA and note that it is work of a chain of people who have led the NYDA. The attainment of clean audit does not mean that the NYDA is improving the lives of young people.
The NYDA must be visible and we will not shy away from this course we will never celebrate mediocrity there will soon make sure that the NYDA does not operate as a secret organization the Youth League is here and we will not be silenced when such state Agencies continue to fail young people of this country. The ANCYL will make sure that the NYDA exists in all provinces and in all district Municipalities in order to improve its efficiency.
We are very clear that an unskilled nation can not grow its economy. Skills development is a critical part of our quest for the attainment of Economic Freedom in our lifetime. It is in this context that we have made a clear call that there must be free education from Basic Education up until the attainment of the first Bachelors Degree.
The minister of higher education can not today make a clarion call for Free Education whilst he has been a minister since 2009. In the past 6 years he has failed to even attempt to deliver a mere plan to attain free education. It is in this spirit that the ANCYL as part of its program will have a March for Free Education. We will mobilize our sister organizations SASCO AND COSAS to join us in this march, we will mobilize all Young People in a plight that the country must invest in the education of its future which is Young People, # we are the future nothing can stop us. We no longer want clarion calls for free education but we need it in order to grow our economy. Free education is not only a social issue but it is an economic issue because a skilled nation is an economically growing nation.
The ANCYL is once more alive and well. We will in the Month of October continue to work tirelessly towards building a better future for the Young People of this country. We will continue with our organizational work and implementation of congress resolutions. We will soon issue letters of expulsion to the members whose name appear in court documents as people who took the ANCYL to court. This is part of cleansing the organization from people who are counter revolutionary to the organization whilst they continue to parade as members of the organization.
We have structured our organization to be able to deliver on its mandate. We have made deployments to provinces and subcommittees which will be publicized on our website.
We call on all members to use internal mechanisms to resolve political issues which are common in all political organizations. The ANCYL remains the only home for young people and we encourage all young people to join us in our quest for the attainment of Economic Freedom in our lifetime.
The ANCYL is a patriotic organization and we wish to the springboks all the best in the world cup campaign. We however still believe more should be done to speed up the process of transformation in rugby. We would also like to further congratulate Trevor Noah for hosting a show that has been hosted by one person for the past 16 years. We call on all South Africans to support Trevor Noah as he makes our country shine.
Statement issued by ANCYL National Officials, 1 October 2015
