DA welcomes Parliament’s decision to refer the NYDA board recommendation report back to the Portfolio Committee

Parliament today agreed to refer the National Youth Development Agency (NYDA) recommendation report back to the Portfolio Committee on Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities, indicating that indeed the board recommendations are not representative of South Africa’s youth demographics as per Section 4 of the NYDA Act. This comes after the Democratic Alliance (DA), youth organisations and activists across the country called the process into question. The DA raised the red flag during the first and second phases of the shortlisting and interview processes for the NYDA board.

We maintain that the NYDA board recommendations were an ANC-sponsored cadre deployment scam that sought to facilitate legally looting NYDA’s almost R500 million budget. This suspicion was all but confirmed in a letter seen by the DA that ANC National Youth Task Team (NYTT) convener, Tandi Mahambehlala, sent to the ANC deputy secretary general, Jessie Duarte, three months ago where she listed the Progressive Youth Alliance’s (PYA) preferred candidates for the NYDA board.

The Portfolio Committee is not a rubber-stamping committee. The DA does not believe that the composition of the board is based on merit. It is for this reason that we will again object to the NYDA board recommendations when the matter is debated and voted on in the National Assembly. We also sponsored a petition in Parliament that has more than 1000 signatures from young people all across the country protesting the board recommendations.

The DA would like to thank all young people, organisations and activists for raising their voices on various different mediums. Parliament is there to ensure the voices of ordinary people in communities across South Africa are heard. This is the first step to ensure Parliament fulfils its mandate which is to represent the people.

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