The Democratic Alliance Youth (DAY) is calling for the scrapping of the National Youth Development Agency (NYDA).
The call goes as far as 2014 when the DAY used to hold pickets outside 2014.
The party’s spokesperson, Lindokuhle Sixabayi, said they were of the view that the NYDA was purely conceived to offer ANC Youth League members who had failed to make it into parliament, council, and legislatures, the opportunity to earn an income.
“Since the days of its predecessor, Umsobomvu Youth Fund, this agency has been making headlines for all the wrong reasons,” said Sixabayi.
“Its primary focus is supposed to be to tackle challenges that the youth faces in the country, but you rarely see them anywhere. There are young people who do not even know what the NYDA is.
With high youth unemployment and young people being locked out of opportunities, we have an NYDA board that earns about half a million rand for attending only 10 board meetings.”
He said that over the years they had received messages from young people from across the country asking them to intervene in corruption and other serious allegations that they were currently investigating.
“These range from fraud and stealing of business ideas from young people which are given to those who are close to the ANC,” Sixabayi said.
“As if this were not enough, recently we saw the new executive board chair Asanda Luwaca flitting off to Russia – a country that is to be blamed for the high rising cost of living which are affecting young people mostly."
DAY has held pickets and community mobilization asking people to add their voices to their call. They said they want the NYDA to be devolved to cater for all municipalities and that the government must establish youth work-opportunity centres across the country.
NYDA spokesperson Bongekle Skosana denied that the agency was not serving its purpose. She said they had assisted more than 10 000 youth entrepreneurs with financial support and more than 100 000 with non-financial support over the last five years.
She asked for evidence that the NYDA had stolen young people’s ideas.
“No such matter has been lodged with the NYDA tip-off anonymous hotline or customer care line,” she said.
Explaining the trip to Russia, she said South Africa formed part of the BRICS group of countries and the NYDA, whose mandate encompassed international relations for youth development, maintained cordial bilateral relations with the Federal Agency for Youth in Russia.
“The executive chairperson, Ms. Asanda Luwaca, led a delegation of South African youth for a BRICS Youth Camp which is an annual event. The goal of the youth camp is to attract experts, youth leaders and organisations from BRICS countries to promote sustainable development and facilitate co-operation within the five countries.”
In 2021/2022 financial year the NYDA’s salaries amounted to 21% of its budget, substantially lower than the government norm of 35%.
She also listed a number of achievements in the last eight months, which included an eighth clean audit with no irregular or fruitless and wasteful expenditure, more than R150 million in additional donor funding raised, and that the cabinet had approved for the first time – in June – an integrated youth development strategy for South Africa drafted by the NYDA that will guide youth development up to 2030