Johannesburg - The process of establishing the National Youth Development Agency (NYDA) got off to an inauspicious start this week as some organisations refused to forward the names of candidates who should serve on its national executive committee.
The NYDA is an institution intended to fund youth-owned small businesses.
Both the youth wings of the Democratic Alliance (DA) and AfriForum have vowed to boycott the nomination process, claiming it is not going to be conducted fairly.
The NYDA, which was expected to start running in June, is the result of a merger between the Umsobomvu Youth Fund and the National Youth Commission.
The deadline for submitting nominations is on Friday and the names of shortlisted candidates will be announced on March 9.
The committee will consist of seven members.
DA Youth spokesperson Khume Ramulifho said the organisation would not forward any names as it did not trust the nomination process.
"If the NYDA is going to be monopolised by ANCYL members, just like Umsobomvu, then we do not think there will be any improvement on how youth-owned small businesses are financially aided," Ramulifho said.
Economic development programmes
Ramulifho said though his party would not form part of the NYDA, the DA Youth would scrutinise every move the new institution makes.
"We will be watching the performance of NYDA very closely and promise to expose any corruption that we find," he said.
He added that the DA had not been informed about Friday's deadline.
The president of the mainly Afrikaans civil formation AfriForum Youth, Ernst Roets, said he had only heard about the nomination process from City Press Business.
"Our problem is that the government never made any effort to contact us about the NYDA's nominations," he said.
"But this does not mean that we are angry or mad at the government. We just feel that there are lots of successful projects we have lined up that are going to make a difference in our people's lives," said Roets.
He said the organisation was forming its own economic development projects. "Our members are going to be working on that, rather than being part of a forum that is not going to benefit them."
Roets added that the deadline for submissions was too soon.
Even if our organisation wanted to nominate anyone, we could not do so because that can only be done at our youth committee meeting, which is being held next Sunday, March 8 ," he said.
National African Federated Chambers of Commerce Youth president Phosane Mngqibisa said the organisation had yet to nominate a candidate.
Will belong to youth of SA
We will have an emergency meeting some time this week and select a person, preferably a woman, to lead the agenda for young entrepreneurs," said Mngqibisa.
The spokesperson for the ANCYL, Nyiko Shivambu, said the league had nominated its deputy president, Andile Lungisa, for the position of chair.
The invitation for nominations makes it clear that the candidate should possess suitable qualifications, expertise and experience in the youth arena.
Talking about Lungisa's experience, Shivambu said: "He has led various youth development formations, including the SA Youth Council in Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Municipality."
The ANCYL will ask the youth formations of both the Inkatha Freedom Party and the Freedom Front to submit their candidates' names.
The co-chairperson of the ad hoc committee of the NYDA, Lulu Johnson, said no youth formation was going to dictate which positions the candidates should hold.
I saw on the media that the ANCYL wants its deputy president to be the chairperson of the NYDA," said Johnson. "This is nonsense."
"There is no youth formation that is going to give us directives on who we should shortlist or not," he said.
"We are the ones who are going to do the shortlisting and if we think a candidate does not qualify to serve on the committee, we will disqualify that candidate," he said.
"It must be clear that the NYDA will belong to the youth of this country and not just the ANCYL," he said.
He said the youth formations should take the nomination process seriously by submitting candidates who are in good standing.
"The NYDA is going to be dealing with billions of rands, and we believe that we can"t just appoint anybody to serve on the committee."
Johnson added that the DA and the AfriForum youth formation's argument that they were not told about the nominations was flawed.
"We had a meeting where all the youth formations were invited but these organisation did not attend," he said.
- City Press