Your Excellencies, the President of the Republic, Dr J G Zuma and Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe, Ministers and Deputy Ministers, Members of Parliament, guests in the gallery, fellow South Africans, I greet you.
We debate this Budget Vote during this month of May when we, as the ANC, celebrate the life and times of president Pixley ka Isaka Seme, under the theme: Workers and the struggle for liberation. We reflect on the roadmap of the workers' struggles which led to the attainment of the democracy that we rightfully enjoy today.
The vision of president Pixley ka Isaka Seme and his generation to create a united, nonracial, nonsexist and democratic South Africa found resonance in the ANC's inaugural meeting on 08 January 1912, in Mangaung. Today we reflect on and celebrate these historic moments against the backdrop of the triple challenge of poverty, inequality and unemployment that continue to torment our people, particularly the youth of our country.
Indeed, this Budget Vote could not have been tabled at a better time than on the eve of Youth Month, when we equally recall the historic events of 1976, which helped to mobilise and unite the youth of our country to become part of the disciplined vanguard forces of our revolution, under the leadership of the ANC. They were serving as dedicated and gallant fighters in the front ranks of our revolutionary struggle, whilst working on improving their level of competence in all fields in which they were involved, whether politically, militarily, academically or administratively.
The legacy of freedom bestowed upon our people by the sacrifices of the young people of 1976 has placed additional responsibility on the youth of today to defend and help entrench the value system that inspired the earlier generation of our youth. That value system was based on a set of moral injunctions that prescribed that revolutionary youth must be inspired by one objective and one objective only - to serve the people of South Africa with no expectations, in terms of personal wealth, power, position or prestige.
The achievement of political democracy in 1994 was the nexus for the militant youth of the predemocratic era. The adoption of the democratic dispensation in 1994 brought to the fore a different set of new challenges for the youth in general. The challenge, from a political perspective, was to actively participate in the newly established political and economic structures, and to make a meaningful contribution towards the future of our country.
Youth development in general is regarded as an urgent and complex challenge facing post-apartheid South Africa. Eighteen years after the official transition to democracy, it is young people who are most severely affected by negative socioeconomic factors, such as HIV and Aids, high levels of unemployment, poverty, unplanned pregnancies and lack of participation in political processes.
In his paper titled: A Decade of Youth Development - Creating an Enabling Environment for Democracy and Development, Nhlanhla Mtaka of Ingabadi Group noted that:
Like the greater society and population, there is (among youth) telling inequality with regard to race, gender, location (urban versus non-urban) and available life chances.
It was against this background that in 1996 our country saw, for the first time, the institutionalisation of youth development, through the Youth Commission. These structures were set up by state institutions to lobby for and advocate youth development programmes. To respond to the legislation, the National Youth Commission Act No 19 of 1996, as amended in 2000, the National Youth Commission spearheaded the development and adoption of the National Youth Development Policy Framework.
Eighteen years into democracy we can say, with great conviction, that what the generation of 1976 stood for - democracy, equality, equal access to basic goods and services, and freedom from discrimination - has been achieved, but more work needs to be done in this regard.
Let me sketch out some of the pertinent challenges that the average South African youth in either the rural areas of Limpopo, Northern Cape and Mpumalanga or the urban areas of Gugulethu in the Western Cape, Soweto in Gauteng and Ethekwini in KwaZulu-Natal, stand to face from birth to death; which are important in order to understand who it is we are speaking about when we speak of the youth of the Republic South Africa.
The Development Bank of Southern Africa states that there are 18,8 million youth in South Africa and that those aged between 15 and 19 account for 27,8%, which is 5,2 million, and those aged between 20 and 24 account for 26,7%, which is 5 million; whereas those aged between 25 and 29 and 30 and 34 account for 24,1%, which is 4,5 million and 21,5%, which is 4 million, respectively.
In appreciating this analysis, I must indicate that most of the above- mentioned youth - men and women - are expected to live only for 52 years. If we reach this age, we will consider ourselves lucky, mainly because of the scourge of HIV and Aids. The Africa Centre for Health and Population Studies states that HIV is so prevalent that 27% of females between 15 and 50 years, and 14% of males between 15 and 54 years have had to live with and die from this pandemic in our country.
The challenge of HIV and Aids has altered the family structure as we know it in South Africa, leading to the emergence of a uniquely South African phenomenon now known as the "child-headed household". Against this backdrop though, one still draws courage and applauds the efforts of individual persons, nongovernmental organisations and other formations for the work they do, alongside government, in curbing the spread and negative impact of HIV. Most applauded is the participation of young people themselves in this initiative.
Without a doubt unemployment amongst the youth of our country remains the toughest challenge facing all of us today, and it demands a collective effort from government and the private sector. Unemployment in South Africa is highest amongst females, the black population and those aged between 15 and 24 years. By the end of 2009, 53,4% of young, black South Africans between the ages of 15 and 24 were unemployed, and this was three times worse than the unemployment rate of 14,5% amongst young, white South Africans.
According to Professor Malikane of Wits University, although South Africa became a signatory of the Youth Charter in 2009, the country remains racist, sexist and class-based, and has failed to confront patterns of ownership and control of the economy.
As previously stated, ours is an odd nation, due to historical reasons. As such, our urban and rural breakdown has been severely affected. Here, I am referring to the youth of South Africa; a youth facing very real and complex issues of life and death. All this tells us of a possible human volcano which, if not well managed, will soon erupt on all of us.
A broad range of measures is needed, if we are to make progress in expanding employment and alleviating the special problem of youth unemployment. These include measures aimed at stronger investment and growth through our infrastructure build programme and economic support packages, and addressing skills constraints in the economy through measures to improve access to and the quality of basic, further and higher education. Tailored employment policies, including the Community Work Programme, environmental sector public work programmes and the National Rural Youth Service Corps, have all received additional allocations in this year's Budget, and this will help boost youth and overall employment in the short-term.
There have been a number of concerns raised around the proposed youth employment incentive. Discussions with social partners are aimed at mitigating these concerns. The rules, design and monitoring of a youth employment incentive need to ensure that it does not have negative unintended consequences, including potential displacement. The ANC would like to see these issues addressed fully in discussions between social partners at the National Economic and Labour Council, Nedlac, but with urgency as the challenge of creating jobs for young people cannot be indefinitely deferred.
Addressing youth unemployment requires both short-term and long-term measures that encompass the increasing demand for labour, improving education and skills and labour market interventions that improve the employability of young people. The one measure that has attracted the most media attention is the youth wage subsidy. It is important to recognise that no one scheme or model will solve the challenges of youth unemployment, as some in the opposition would like the nation to believe.
What the subsidy seeks to do, in essence, is to reduce the financial cost or risk associated with not knowing the productivity of the person to be employed, but it also seeks to help make the training of young workers more affordable to employers, particularly smaller employers. In essence, the subsidy lowers the relative cost of hiring a young person - while leaving the wage that the employee receives unaffected - and, therefore, increases the demand for younger workers. Another additional benefit is that the work experience and training gained during the period of subsidised work will improve longer-term employment prospects.
But the challenge could be around the design, implementation and cost. Organised labour has advanced a principal concern that older workers, who are often the sole income workers in the households, could be dislodged with fatal consequences to the entire household, an eventuality that the ANC equally wants to avoid. This is why parties are locked in discussions at Nedlac to find a way forward to these current challenges.
No amount of howling from our detractors will sway us from a negotiated settlement as their howling is mere opportunism, political expediency and seeking to appropriate to themselves - which is what they always do - what an ANC-led government initiative seeks to address. It is, therefore, proper for it to be clarified to South Africans that all credit should go to the ANC-led government and no one else. If anything, what our detractors are likely to do, through their actions, will be to merely delay the outcome of an agreement by acts of detraction.
We are fully conscious that the process is not a simple one. It is open to abuse, may lead to youth laziness and could have a possible perverse impact. This is precisely why we are engaged with all stakeholders in negotiating an understanding that deals with the design, regulation and implementation. Whilst it is not my intention to follow in the footsteps of the hon Mazibuko, I do want to caution her and other political parties never to ride on the plight of young people as a tool for political posturing. [Applause.] Some events that we have witnessed in parts of the country in recent times illustrate that amongst some people there is a knowledge of rights, but a failure to appreciate that each right has a corresponding responsibility attached to it.
Recently, we have seen young people being used in destroying public amenities, including schools and libraries, which are so important in the development of communities. It is worth noting that such scenes were not limited to our townships, but were also witnessed in tertiary institutions. These developments, unfortunately, demonstrated a lack of youth leadership across the board.
The youth of South Africa have the will to be proactive and to address current challenges. The country needs a youth leadership that will stand up against destruction and looting; a leadership that will realise that destroying public property is a setback in our quest to speed up development and service roll-out in our communities. We need a responsible solution-oriented youth leadership, as opposed to a leadership that is content with destructive life patterns, such as alcohol, drug abuse, corruption and self-enrichment.
Much has been said over the past years regarding youth apathy on political processes. There is an assumption that young people would rather engage in other social activities on voting days, for instance, unlike the generation of youth who were at the forefront of the struggle for political freedom. Of course, this is a simplistic take on what could be the real problems. But, our limiting factor is the failure of the youth sector to organise outside racial, geographical, religious and political lines.
If indeed we fail to recognise the diversity of young people and only focus on mainstream political occupation, and indirectly sideline groups such as religious and issue-based formations, then we will not solve the dire problems that affect young people.
There is, without a doubt, a greater need to come up with creative ways of involving youth, both organised and unorganised, in matters of policy making. On the other hand, it is up to the youth to demand that they be active participants. They need to provide leadership that will determine their future in the policy processes.
In this regard, it is evident that government has to create mandatory structures to encourage youth from all structures to participate in the transformation of our society. Structures such as the National Youth Development Agency and government in general should find new innovative ways of empowering young people, by creating new mechanisms for participation. These new mechanisms should treat young people as stakeholders in policy formulation, monitoring and implementation. Through these mechanisms, young people should feel that it is incumbent upon them to participate in policy formulation processes.
As I take my seat, I do believe that the time for the rise of a new young person is now - a new young person who will be at the forefront of the restoration of our cultural values, particularly the culture of ubuntu, which respects a diversity of views; a new young person who will stand up against crime and corruption in all forms and fight against any form of discrimination; a new young person who will have respect for all humankind, including his peers and elders; a new young person who will be at the forefront in ensuring broader youth participation in the mainstream economy.
In the midst of the reported doom and gloom linked to poverty and unemployment, South Africa needs her youth to start writing a new story - a chapter of hope and commitment to serving our people. By working closely with government we can take charge and claim our space. We can begin to be authors of our destiny and write a chapter that will have a positive and far-reaching impact on the country's future. The ANC supports the budget. Thank you very much. [Applause.]