National Youth Development Agency alleged statement of 'South Africa to be ungovernable' claim - untrue

22 Aug 2011

The National Youth Development Agency (NYDA) has noted media reports emanating from the Black Management Forum Young Professionals Summit that took place in Cape Town on Friday, 19 August 2011, alleging that the Executive Chairperson of the NYDA Andile Lungisa has threatened to make South Africa "ungovernable" next month because of high youth unemployment.

The NYDA would like to place it on record that Lungisa has no intention of making the country ungovernable at any point, but that the NYDA would be in support of peaceful demonstrations planned by the youth wing of the ruling party, the African National Congress (ANC) Youth League, aimed at highlighting the plight of unemployed young people. This is in line with the NYDA march to the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) that was planned for June 2011 but was postponed due to budgetary constraints; the march was widely reported in the South African media.

As part of its own programme the Youth League has undertaken to call for marches in all provinces, to strategic sectors of the economy, particularly the JSE, Chamber of Mines and others, and will mobilise all young people, unemployed youth, informal settlement dwellers to fight against economic oppressions in all its formats and character.

It is a known fact that despite various initiatives by South Africa's democratic government, young people continue to be underdeveloped, constituting the majority of the unemployed, as such the continued focus of merely quoting statistics needs to be followed with more action by government, the private sector and civil society.

The justification particularly from the private sector, that young people are unemployed because they lack skills and work experience cannot be valid because for young people to gain the required skills and experience they must be given the opportunity to access the workplace and gain the necessary skills. During the recent National Youth Convention organised by the NYDA in Kimberley young people themselves, recognising the slow pace of the private sector, called for a private sector forum to be Chaired by President Jacob Zuma to look at ways of accelerating their participation in youth development.

Furthermore the continuous unjustified assertions by opposition parties on the alleged underperformance by the NYDA is nothing more than political grandstanding unfortunately at the expense of millions of unemployed youth, whose hopes remain largely with the NYDA.

While the under-resourcing of the NYDA has threatened its performance in the past two years of its existence, the NYDA continues to make inroads in improving the lives of young people including facilitating youth access to business funding. A collective effort to support structures that are put in place by government to support the development of young people is what is required, not continued unjustifiable criticism.

The NYDA marked its second year of existence in June 2011 and has made progress in providing development opportunities to young people, including approving R66, 7 million worth of loans to young entrepreneurs and sourcing business opportunities worth over R144 million through the Business Opportunities Support Service. About 5,277 Business Consultancy Services vouchers were issued to youth for business development services including for company registrations, tendering and marketing support.

Furthermore the organisation has also provided career guidance to over 444, 000 young people and trained 152,377 young people including 84, 644 trained through the National Youth Service programme. In addition over 61, 000 jobs have been sustained through various NYDA programmes including the entrepreneurship and skills development programmes.

The NYDA remains committed in improving the lives of young people. While we continue to lobby for more resources, the NYDA will continue to go into partnerships with government and municipalities towards improving the lives of young people. It is our conviction that through these efforts the private sector will realise the resourcefulness of young people and begin to give them opportunities.

Statement issued by Siyabonga Magadla, National Youth Development Agency, August 22 2011

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