ANC continues to be out of touch with the plight of the youth

More importantly, the ANCYL has no vision for young people in South Africa. Its leadership is completely out of touch with the plight of young people, instead only focused on fighting internal ANC factional battles and being implicated in State Capture.

Adding insult to injury, the ANCYL requested disgraced former North West Premier, Supra Mahumapelo, to be the keynote speaker at its youth month lecture. Mahumapelo fuelled unemployment during his tenure as Premier by presiding over a state capture project that left many people in the North West impoverished due to large scale looting of public money.

What could Mahumapelo possibly lecture young people about? The ANC’s disdain for poor, young South Africans knows no bounds.

The biggest challenge facing the youth of today is unemployment – over 50% of South Africa’s young people are jobless and the ANCYL has made no attempts to address this dire situation. The organisation is simply absent in the national conversation about how to uplift young people from the shackles of poverty and joblessness. The ANC should simply shut the ANCYL down.

Only the DA Youth has a plan for young people. We are resolute in traveling to every corner of the country reminding young people that their struggle is a priority to us.

Where we govern, unemployment levels are much lower than the national average. This has been demonstrated by our record in government in Tshwane, the City of Johanessburg and Nelson Mandela Bay.

Just this week, it was revealed that over 75% of jobs created came from the Western Cape. This is by no accident. It is due to unwavering commitment to serve the people first, run clean governments and root out corruption.

The DA Youth vision for young people is to ensure that:

• They are freed from ANC corruption which has robbed them of jobs;
• They are protected from crime; and
• They have access to quality education and jobs.

The ANC and its youth wing have demonstrated to South Africans that they have no tangible plan for young people. Instead they have created entities like the NYDA which is simply an employment agency for the politically aligned.

Young people must register to vote. This is the only way we can ensure that the DA’s governance record is rolled out across the country and we can get more young people working for a better future.