ANC Youth League (ANCYL) president Collen Malatji has strongly condemned ANC national chairperson Gwede Mantashe’s remarks that today’s youth are unemployed because they do not apply for jobs.
A fiery Malatji clapped back, saying the youth cannot be told that by someone “who has never written or submitted a CV” in their life.
“With the high level of unemployment in South Africa, you find leaders of the ANC saying that people are unemployed because they are lazy to apply for jobs. Those are people who are detached from the reality of the people of South Africa,” Malatji said on Thursday.
He was addressing the ANC Women’s League prayer service at Covenant Fellowship Church in Rustenburg, North West.
“How do you say to the youth of this country and mothers who are giving their kids money every day to go and apply for jobs that they are lazy? Then a man who has not retired and yet has never written a CV his entire life stands and says that the youth is unemployed because they are lazy to apply for jobs.”
Mantashe recently came under fire for stating the youth of South Africa remain destitute and unemployed because they don’t apply for jobs. He accused them of waiting on the government to empower them — which he controversially said was not the government’s primary mandate.
We don’t want your views, we don’t want your slogans. We want you to speak resolutions of the ANC and not what you think is right. We don’t care what you think; we care about the resolutions of the ANC
— Collen Malatji, ANCYL president
He suggested that unemployed South Africans are overly dependent on the government to provide jobs rather than actively seeking employment.
“The ANC has given you a fishing rod — must it now catch fish for you?” he asked.
“I am now over 70. I’ve never had a government look for a job for me. Today, because there is a progressive government, people expect that government to give them jobs. They don’t look for jobs themselves, and that must change,” said Mantashe, who is also the minister of mineral and petroleum resources.
Malatji said the ANC does not need “irresponsible leaders”.
“Our leaders sometimes ... speak [as if] they are at their dining tables with their families. You are saying the majority of South Africans are lazy — that is irresponsible and it’s wrong. They are going to leave the space and leave us with problems.”
Malatji urged women in the ANC to call out wrongdoing in the the party.
“Mothers of the ANC, whenever the ANC is doing wrong things, you must be the first ones to stand up because you carry the kids for nine months in your stomach. They can’t be born in a government and a country that lacks decisive leadership, that has unemployment and where there is poverty. Our mothers must stand up against irresponsible leaders who speak outside what the ANC has sent them to do.”
Malatji called on members and leaders of the ANC to stick to their deployed mandate.
“We don’t want your views, we don’t want your slogans. We want you to speak resolutions of the ANC and not what you think is right. We don’t care what you think; we care about the resolutions of the ANC.”
The unemployment rate among South Africa’s youth is said to be between 46% and 58%.
TimesLIVE
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