ANCYL STATEMENT ON THE STATE OF THE NATION ADDRESS
Friday, 14 February 2014
The ANC Youth League welcomes the State of the Nation as by the President of the Republic Honorable JG Zuma, which was on the 13 February 2014 to whole nation, at a joint seating of the National Assembly and the National Council of Provinces in parliament.
The State of the Nation Address gave an account of the progress South Africa has made in the last 20 years of freedom and democracy, more particularly the advances made in implementing the five priorities adopted in the beginning of the current term of government in 2009.
The ANC Youth League draws confidence and reassurance from the President's address that we have done remarkably well as a country to erode the dark legacy of the Apartheid. Not only have we been able to fashion out an array of public institutions that reinforce the vision of a democratic South Africa, we have also deployed state resources to the service of our people in a manner that has fostered social transformation. Our government has correctly played a strategic role in rolling back the frontiers of poverty and underdevelopment through investment initiatives in social security, infrastructure, sanitation, water, housing, public healthcare, education etc.
With particular reference to the last 5 years, the ANC Youth League commends the strategic focus placed on education by government. We have cooperated well with government in the transformation of the post-schooling environment through restructuring the FET sector and increased funding for students and institutions. The strides made in this regard are commendable, with the post-schooling environment rapidly diversifying as more young people are absorbed in FET colleges for skills training and Universities. The increase in NSFAS allocation from R3.8 billion in 2009 to R9 billion in 2014 is deserving of applause, although we still insist that more needs to be done in advancing towards free education for all.
The restructuring of our economy towards an inclusive and de-racialised trajectory is a continuous process and government has done well over the past 20 years. The intervention of the state in the economy through strategic public spending in infrastructure projects and the social welfare net provides a critical insulator for our economy. We are happy with these interventions as the ANC Youth League since they have created job opportunities for young people. Although we took a serious knocking, our economy managed to halt the effects of the global financial crisis that visited all economies better than most economic powers.
We will continue engaging the ANC and its government on the need to pursue a much more radical project for of economic restructuring in order to increase our autonomy from the financial markets, so that in the next cycle of the financial meltdown we come out much better than we did this time around. This is related to our call for minerals sovereignty through strategic nationalization and the expansion of the minerals value chain by boosting local beneficiation, conversion and trading as finished goods. This will massively create jobs and boost the capacity of the domestic economy to even consume locally produced products.
Of course the ANC has already committed to the idea of a state-led mining company as a driver of this minerals sovereignty initiative. We are well on course to increasing the productive capacity of our manufacturing industry in this regard. This will also fit in well with the government's progressive Industrial Policy Action Plan and the Presidential Infrastructure Coordination Committee's projects.
Statement issued by the ANC Youth League, February 14 2014
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