Mzansi Today: Love your South Africa!

Fellow Democrats,

Driving around the streets of South Africa in the last week or so, one is struck by the many posters and billboards encouraging people to go and register this weekend, the 5th and 6th of March. It is not the posters that are of interest to me, but the message that they carry: Love your South Africa. It is a simple but meaningful statement. It says that we should put any differences aside because we are all South Africans first. We should all work hard to strengthen our democracy and ensure that we contribute to the success of our country. This is why the DA Youth has been on the forefront of ensuring that the needs of ALL South Africans are taken into account when policies and programmes are drafted.

As young people we should be at the forefront of strengthening our democracy by participating in the electoral processes. We should also use our vote as an assessment of the current government by voting them out if they failed to deliver on their promises.

NYDA
We are often wrongfully accused of not commending the government when they do well and being quick to criticise. We will always commend government when they are serving South Africans properly. What we will not do is to keep quiet when R100 million meant for youth development is wasted on a week of partying for radical youth organisations. The NYDA in its current form has achieved nothing but the enrichment of the pockets of its ANC YL executive. As long as this is what their budget is used for, rather than tangible youth development initiatives like a wage subsidy and zero-rating of VAT on books, then we will continue to lobby for the NYDA to be disbanded.

State of the Nation and Budget Speech
There have been some good initiatives announced in both the State of the Nation and Budget Speech that we as young people should welcome. As our Leader, Helen Zille, said after the State of the Nation, some of the programmes announced by the President have been DA policy for some time now. We specifically welcome the adoption by government of DA Youth initiated programmes like a youth wage subsidy and a commitment to prioritise education.

The strong stance taken by the Minister of Finance on a youth wage subsidy scheme specifically should be commended. We have been fighting for the introduction of the scheme for some time now, as we believe that it offers a tangible way to start making inroads into the youth unemployment crisis facing us. If fighting for a youth wage subsidy is considered counter revolutionary by Cosatu and alliance members, then I am a proud counter revolutionary. As the DA Youth, we will not stop our call for the introduction of the scheme, and we won’t apologise for our stance. We hope the process at Nedlac will move faster and the scheme is introduced soon. On the wage subsidy we are with the minister, it is time we explore alternatives to address our youth unemployment crisis.

Regards,

Makashule Gana
DA Youth Federal leader