Speaker, His Excellency hon President Jacob Zuma, hon Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe, Ministers and Deputy Ministers, Brand SA Chairperson Ms Chichi Maponya and chief executive Mr Miller Matola, chief executive of the National Youth Development Agency, NYDA, Mr Steven Ngubeni, though represented here by the executive managers, hon members, officials from government, especially from the Presidency, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, I am honoured to take the platform to contribute to the Presidency Budget Vote for the year 2012-13. This budget submission comes against the backdrop of difficult economic conditions that should shape how we think, how we plan, as well as how we should utilise our resources.
Countries in the world continuously compete for investors' attention by projecting stability, opportunities and a far-sighted and strategic leadership. We therefore need to mobilise all social sectors as we, as a country, are not exonerated from social pressures, due to some of the external factors, and continue to experience the triple evils of poverty, unemployment and inequality, mostly affecting the youth of the country.
Prior to the dawn of democracy in South Africa through the historic 27 April 1994 democratic breakthrough, issues of youth development were never really prioritised or institutionalised. As a result, and as the Deputy President has already alluded to, the majority of the youth population is living with a tormenting fear of a bleak future. It is widely agreed that youth development issues cannot be left mainly to civil society and youth organisations alone, but they should always find expression within government structures, legislation, policies, strategies and programmes.
It is evident that the key factors that define the welfare of young people in our own country range from education and skills development to youth access to economic participation and access to job opportunities. The youth of this country is no different from the rest of the youth in other parts of the world. They are continuously faced with challenges that include extreme youth poverty, a lack of or limited participation in activities that improve their wellbeing as young people, gender inequality and marginalisation. The UN had resolved in 2011 that there is a need to foster co-operation among young people and educate them about the ideals of peace, freedom, justice, tolerance, respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, patriotism, solidarity and dedication to the objectives of progress and development. The late former President of Mozambique, Samora Machel, is quoted as having said that "Youth is the best time to be rich and the best time to be poor". Nothing is closer to the truth. According to the African Youth Report of 2012, trends in the African youth population will generally remain higher - up to 70% of Africa's population - than in other world regions by 2025, and this youth bulge needs new strategies, new investments in youth, new ways of looking at the matter and, finally, it needs an innovative response by the African leadership because it is happening here on our continent.
The large youth population in Africa should be seen as an asset and not a liability for the continent's development, if appropriate human capital investment measures are taken. South Africa has an opportunity to provide leadership and to ensure it is a matter of focus in the African Union, AU. Africa is faced with a cyclical phenomenon of nature, known as the youth bulge, something that happened in the 1960s in Western countries and was known as the Baby Boom at the time.
President and Deputy President, in South Africa young people constitute the majority of the unemployed, with no less than 70% remaining job seekers. According to the National Treasury strategy document on confronting youth development, unemployed people tend to be less skilled and inexperienced, with almost 80% having no formal further or tertiary education, while two thirds have never worked in their lives. This gives a view of the urgency of the need to attend to the youth unemployment challenge. It would, however, be ill conceived to seek to suggest that nothing is being done. South Africa, as well as the SADC countries, has demonstrated great commitment towards the advancement of the youth development agenda. This is also confirmed by the country with the establishment of the NYDA.
While the youth of 1976 fought for freedom and the creation of a democratic state, today's youth activism is directed towards successfully tackling the challenges of combating poverty, unemployment, HIV/Aids, personal development, economic freedom and the development of their own country, amongst others. This is encapsulated in the mandate of the NYDA whose responsibility, amongst others, is to initiate, design, co-ordinate, evaluate and monitor programmes.
President, you once said to me, when I arrived at the office, that you don't feel the voice of the young people and that we don't hear them speaking about the issues of their country, what they love about it and also criticising what is happening in the country. Processes have already begun to engage with the youth. We have started with the departments. We had a meeting with all the departmental youth directorates. What we have found, unfortunately, is that these directorates have been established and people are earning salaries, but when we look at the programmes and content of the programmes, they are just neither here nor there. People are looking at the month of June as the only one for activities that they are mobilising as departments. The mainstreaming of the youth agenda is not there, and we have agreed that we will meet them again in November, when we will invite the National Planning Commission Ministry to come and talk about its own findings about the youth challenges and provide its proposals, so that the youth directorates can hear them.
Secondly, we will also invite the Ministry for Performance Management and Evaluation to assist with the development of measurement tools, assessment and evaluations, so that departments, in the mainstreaming of the youth agenda, can also be measured. Such reports will then be tabled to Cabinet.
We also find questions on the achievements of the NYDA. It has delivered on its mandate, and it does continue to do so, but due to a lack of adequate resources, it is unable to reach a bigger portion of the young people in the country. A total of 60% of South Africa's population is young, so if we give them meagre resources, obviously, they will not reach very far. Maybe the question should be how much the country should be investing in the development of the bulging youth population.
Since the merging of the Youth Commission and Umsobomvu, the two organisations used to get a combined budget of R1,1 billion. The Youth Commission was receiving R600 million, and Umsobomvu was receiving R500 million. Since the merger, the NYDA got R386 million in the 2010-2011 financial year. In this financial year, they are even getting R10 million less. So, we are not investing properly when it comes to youth development and so forth.
I will also not agree with the members who will come to the podium and say that only those who are connected are benefiting. We will give you a list of names of the people who have benefited. Phone them at your liberty and ask them whether they are connected to anybody. You will find that these people just got information and, after receiving information, they phoned and were assisted. [Applause.] Almost 5 000 young people have benefited insofar as starting their own businesses is concerned, and are now in business. Secondly, 49 000 young people were trained through entrepreneurship training. [Interjections.] We will give you that list, and you can phone them and check whether they were connected to somebody.
There are quite a number of other programmes from which young people are benefiting, but it is not enough. There is only an amount of R386 million for a population of 60% young people, the majority of whom are unemployed and are not in school.
I went to Namibia recently, and I think that they have a better programme than we have. They do the following. The youth who are unemployed are being taken to youth camps. In all provinces in Namibia, there are youth camps. They go there for three or six months for what they call reorientation programmes. During that reorientation, there are nation-building, patriotism, and social cohesion courses. They are able to assess their strength in terms of intellectual capability and those who are not gifted are reassigned with career guidance to go and do something. By the time they come back home, they come back with a particular orientation that is positive towards contributing to the strengthening of their own country. I think that is something that we could begin to look at and learn from such countries.
When it comes to Brand SA, I think a number of speakers have alluded to the international aspect of it. I will focus more on the domestic side of things. Brand SA's domestic strategic focus is also to mobilise active citizenry through its innovative "Play Your Part" campaign. However, Speaker, through you to the President, we went around Pretoria, Tshwane, and then we looked at the buildings of government when the flag was flying at half-mast due to the deaths of former Minister Sicelo Shiceka and the late Minister Roy Padayachie. A number of government departments don't have their country's flag. They don't have flagpoles, and that is an area where we can say that we should play our part with regard to the citizens. Let government play its part by also branding itself and ensuring that the flag flies everywhere and is everywhere. [Applause.]
Through an intense process of consultation and research, Brand SA managed to develop a new pay-off line, Inspiring New Ways. This is to ensure that the country remains relevant and competitive in this dynamic global environment. This new pay-off line carries a message of who we are and what we stand for as South Africans. With South African being an African country, it has also committed itself to working closely with our African peers to develop new ways to achieve sustainable economic growth and development. Therefore, initiatives are being taken to ensure that the trade flaws in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Zimbabwe, Angola and Mozambique are also being looked at.
President, just as I am about to conclude, yesterday, during the Youth Month launch, the youth wage subsidy was raised by representatives of youth organisations. They requested the Presidency to sponsor a youth consultative summit during the school holidays to be organised so that all the views of the young people, through the umbrella body, the SA Youth Council, can be expressed. They have the right to express their own views. Allow them to express their views, because this is the youth wage subsidy. All the views that are unfortunately dividing them can then be harnessed in that particular summit of four or five days so that they can emerge with a voice that can then begin to lead and assist government in concluding the matter of the implementation of the youth wage subsidy. There are certain modalities that they have concerns with. There are those who agree with it, yes, but there are those who do not agree with it. Let all of them convene under the SA Youth Council, because it is a representative body of organisations in religion, faith-based organisations, cultural organisations, political organisations, and so forth.
Also, earlier when hon Mazibuko was describing the Western Cape, I could just imagine that she was describing it as the biblical Jerusalem.