State-funded totalitarian conference: DA Youth reveals provincial governments approached for funding
The DA Youth can reveal that, on top of the R29 million allocated to the National Youth Development Agency (NYDA) to host next month's radical totalitarian youth conference, entitled the World Festival of Youth and Students, we also understand that the NYDA has approached the nine provincial governments to contribute a sum total of approximately R4 million of funding for the event.
The DA-run Western Cape refused the Agency's request for funding. The DA has submitted parliamentary questions in the other eight provincial legislatures, to establish whether any ANC-run provincial governments have acceded to the NYDA's request.
The National Youth Development Agency has become nothing more than a R400 million political tool, used by the ANC government to appease the ANC Youth League (ANCYL). We must recall that this event was not an NYDA hosted event in the first place.
This has always been an ANCYL hosted event - they are members of the World Federation of Democratic Youth, who ultimately run this event, and they are the ones who sent a delegation to Lebanon in February to bid to host the event. It is a complete sham that any public funds are being diverted towards an ANC Youth League event, and the fact that President Zuma's youth development budget is being used is all the more disturbing.
Because of the fact that the NYDA has been terminally compromised, on Friday I tendered my resignation from this entity. The ANC Youth League's Millicent Tingwe yesterday released a statement, claiming that "severe pressure" from my party caused me to resign. She even somehow claimed that this was "ironic" because this supposed "bullying" of me coincided with the start of the 16 Days of Activism campaign.
This demonstrates just how completely out of touch with reality the ANC Youth League's representatives are. There was about as much "pressure" on me to resign, as there is evidence that the Youth League's mine nationalizing proposal is a good idea.
Equally ridiculous is the fact that Minister in the Presidency, Collins Chabane, has now apparently attempted to justify the NYDA's financial contribution to the event, on the grounds that it constituted a fraction of the event's total cost - believed to be in the region of R370 million.
Firstly, the NYDA should not, on principle, have taken part in any event that is associated with ruling parties in undemocratic, repressive and totalitarian regimes such as North Korea and Zimbabwe.
Secondly, that public funds are being used to finance an event that not only promises little in the way of sustainable opportunities to promote youth development, but which is clearly an ANCYL motivated initiative constitutes a blatant misuse of state funds and conflation of party and state.
The NYDA's decision to host this event also raises serious questions as to whether the ANC government, and the Presidency, regards nations such as North Korea and Zimbabwe as positive examples of youth development.
The DA Youth is committed to the development of young South Africans. However, unlike the ANCYL, we believe that the cause of the country's youth cannot best be served by an underperforming entity that uses state funds for personal and political gain. It is through practical initiatives, such as the implementation of the wage subsidy proposal and the zero-rating of VAT on books, that young South Africans will truly be offered much needed opportunities to develop to their full potential.
Statement issued by Aimee Franklin, Democratic Alliance National Youth Director, November 22 2010
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