South Africa’s youth dying for work opportunities

South Africa’s youth dying for work opportunities

By BRIAN KAJENGO

Cllr. Muso Kubheka, Mpumalanga DA Youth leader, made the following address during the Mpumalanga Provincial Legislature’s Youth Parliament proceedings in Nelspruit on Friday 20 June 2014.

I rise to offer the support of the Democratic Alliance Youth for the proceedings here today and throughout the month of June, where we celebrate that momentous time in our country’s history 38 years ago, when young people rose up against the cruel and unjust apartheid system.

“Today we pay homage to those young men and women who took the struggle to greater lengths never before imagined, and it is through their sacrifice that we gained freedom in 1994.” Muso Kubheka said.

DA youth leader says Honorable Speaker; it is therefore deeply disturbing that, now, 20 years into democracy, young people are more disadvantaged than ever.

During the proceedings of the past two days, we debated and discussed how the youth of today are history makers, how they are legends of the future, and how they will move South Africa forward.

Yet, the reality is that 70% of our country’s unemployed people are under the age of 35, and in Mpumalanga, more than 40% of young people are unemployed – higher than the national average of 36,1%.

How then can we even begin to think that the youth will move South Africa forward, when?

• The quality of education they receive is not the same in all schools;

• There is little opportunity for qualifying matrics to earn a tertiary education;

•There are little or no state driven internships to provide on-the-job training to graduates; and

•There are no tax incentives for small and medium businesses to employ young people and provide them with valuable job experience.

Sustainable job creation and skills transfer addressed by giving a young person an orange overall to perform menial labour along our roadsides for six months.

Jobs created by talking about it, they are created through the implementation of infrastructure and development programmes aimed at growing our economy, by investing at least 10% of our GDP in infrastructure development, cutting out the corruption that kills our opportunities, as well as incentives and encourages private sector businesses to employ young people.

Honorable Speaker, South Africa knows what needs to be done to create jobs, and we look to our government and our leadership to stop talking, and start doing.