A letter by the ANC National Youth Task Team (NYTT) convener, Tandi Mahambehlala, to the ANC deputy secretary general, Jessie Duarte, proves that the final recommendations for the National Youth Development Agency’s (NYDA) board were pre-determined by Luthuli House.
See the letter here.
The letter, dated three months ago lists the Progressive Youth Alliance’s (PYA) preferred candidates for the NYDA board an affirms that the final recommendations were pre-determined and only rubber-stamped by the ANC in Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities.
It is now clear that the majority of the final recommendations were decided months before the interview process for the board even began.
The letter states that:
“The ANCY NYTT convened all PYA structures with regards to its preferred candidates for the new NYDA board. The structures agreed on the need for continuity with regards to the composition of the board therefore reaffirming the names off Sifiso Mtsweni and Joy Maimela.”
Four names included in the letter ultimately made it on to the final recommended list. These are Sifiso Mtsweni, Thuthikile Zuma, Karabo Mohale, and Avela Mjujabana.
From the onset of the appointment process, the Democratic Alliance (DA) warned against the NYDA board being used, as in the past, to accelerate ANC political interests and patronage, and called for candidates to be appointed based on merit and experience.
Much like most of our state machinery, the ANC and its cadres, under the guise of transformation, BBBEE and empowerment, have regressed the NYDA into a full-blown criminal entity to legally loot its almost half a billion Rand budget.
NYDA board members are paid an average of R500 000 annually to attend 10 board meetings per year, where they decide who will be the next cadre to get a slice of the entity’s almost R500 million budget.
This is millions of Rands wasted on politically compromised individuals whose greatest achievements are their ANC memberships.
Meanwhile, brilliant and talented young people across the demographic and political spectrum are left out in the cold with little to no opportunities available to them.
The National Assembly will soon vote on the appointment of this ANC-sponsored NYDA board recommendations. The DA will once again strongly object to these candidates, as we did during the interview process.
We do not believe that the composition of the board is based on merit in, nor do we believe that they work in the best interest of South Africa’s poor and vulnerable youth.
The NYDA is and will continue to be a structure that serves as patronage for the ANC Youth League and the Young Communist League.
It has done very little with the millions of rands at its disposal other than to enrich a hand-picked few, as has now been confirmed by this letter.