President Zuma has abandoned unemployed youth

Note to editors: This is an extract of the speech that was delivered by DA Parliamentary Leader, Lindiwe Mazibuko MP, today in Parliament, during the Youth Wage Subsidy debate.

Mr Speaker: 

The failure of the President to implement the Youth Wage Subsidy is a failure of political leadership that shames us all. This is the first time in our democratic parliament that a President has announced a policy, but has not been allowed to implement it.

Let me remind the House that this Parliament voted for the Youth Wage Subsidy in the 2011 National Budget with the implementation date of 1 April 2012. We realise now that we have all been taken for fools.

Because the President allowed an unelected organisation to block the will of the people represented in this House, the Youth Wage Subsidy never saw the light of day.

Surely our President cares more about the young unemployed people of South Africa than he does about the vested interests of Cosatu and his re-election prospects at Mangaung? 

While the President dithers, more and more unemployed young people are being sucked into a vortex of despair. Youth unemployment stands at 3,2 million young people and counting. 

We need a policy that strikes to the very heart of the problem that a young person cannot get a job without experience, and cannot get experience without a job. 

Now the ANC is beginning to talk-up what it calls a job seekers' grant. But its not clear how this would create jobs that young people so desperately need?

The job seekers grant is the wrong intervention, in the wrong place, at the wrong time. Rather than giving young people a foothold on the ladder of opportunity, it will trap many in a never-ending cycle of dependency on the state.

The Youth Wage Subsidy, on the other hand, would get unemployed young South Africans onto the ladder of opportunity. 

The Treasury model of the Youth Wage Subsidy calculates that it would benefit 423 000 young people in the first phase of implementation.

The big question today is: ‘where is the Honourable Pravin Gordan?' Has the President muzzled him until after the votes have been counted at Mangaung?

It would seem that responsibility for the Youth Wage Subsidy now lies with the Honourable Ebrahim Patel, who is a senior member of Cosatu. We hope today that he is not here to deliver a watered down version of this policy, because South Africans will not be fooled.

In his response to my parliamentary question last term about these potential compromises, President Zuma proposed sweeping powers for the National Bargaining Council, to control sectoral implementation. This would enable Cosatu to frustrate the implementation of the Subsidy. 

The President also said the number of incentivized workers in any given firm may be limited to one beneficiary for every five existing workers. What kind of government goes to so much effort to limit the number of jobs we can create?

Will Minister Motsoaledi soon be placing limits on how healthy our nation's citizens are allowed to be? Will we soon hear from Minister Motshegka that we don't want our young people to be too well educated?

The time has come for the President to demonstrate what he is made of. It is time he showed Cosatu who is in charge of South Africa, because right now it looks like Cosatu is governing this country.

For the sake of millions of young South Africans, let us today resolve to do the right thing: introduce the full Youth Wage Subsidy policy now.

I thank you.

Issued by the DA, August 16 2012

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