The DA will be writing to the Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities, Hon. Nonhlahla Ndaba, to request an urgent meeting of the Committee to discuss the state of the National Youth Development Agency (NYDA).
Of primary concern is our call for the extension of the public participation process on the NYDA Amendment Bill.
This after it came to light that the public participation process was only opened in December 2020, last month and is due to close on the 31st of January 2021. This period has given little to none opportunity to young people across South Africa to consider the amendment of the said Act. It follows after the ANC tried to bulldoze their cadres into NYDA board positions last year.
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.
The amendment of the NYDA Act has major implications on whether the continued looting of the entity will continue unabated with the change of critical sections of the Act that may allow the NYDA to become a full blown ANC ancillary entity. Meanwhile, brilliant and talented young people across the country and political spectrum are left out in the cold with little to no opportunities available to them.
This move by Parliament is very concerning noting that the NYDA currently is yet to appoint a board. As the DA Youth we are concerned that the draft NYDA Amendment Bill is out for public comment before the board of NYDA is appointed. It really does not make sense why Parliament is prioritising a framework of a leaderless entity NYDA.
The NYDA also has not published the NYDA Amendment Bill on its website, neither has it made efforts to populate and popularise the existence of this process on any of its channels. This is a major hinderance in young people’s engagement in the process and also acts as a barrier to information dissemination on such a critical document.