YOUNG people in Mpumalanga are calling on the ANC to attend to their long-standing issues of unemployment and being sidelined from the government’s projects.
Scores of youth gathered at Communio Church in Mbombela, Mpumalanga on Thursday, 11 January, where ANC president Cyril Ramaphosa addressed them.
Some of them stood outside the venue and said they had no energy to listen to the president because they felt he was just there to campaign for the party and not to address their issues.
One of the young people, Mbongeni Mathonsi who hiked 30 km from Pienaar to Mbombela, said he only came to get the opportunity to tell Ramaphosa about their struggles.
He said his kasi is riddled with unemployment and nothing has been done by the government.
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“Our township is the poorest township in Mbombela. When you enter it, you will be greeted by the smell of poverty. We want Ramaphosa to come and see what we are facing, maybe then he can start acting rather than making promises,” Mbongeni said.
Another young person who is an unemployed graduate, Lethokuhle Mokoena, told Daily Sun that she came to listen to the president on how he was going to address the issues of unemployed graduates and the way forward.
Another man, who runs a driving school, Siboniso Mathenjwa, said his only plea to the governing party is for them to include driving schools in their budget.
He said every year they hear about plans to elevate small businesses, but the driving school sector always falls short.
“Our role in the communities is important because we are the reason people can drive yet we get sidelines. We have to hustle for ourselves with no backup. We use our private cars to teach people how to drive and if they get damaged, we have to fix them from our own pockets and we will also be without a job for that period,” he said.
Siboniso said his only request is for Ramaphosa to introduce subsidies for them.
Ramaphosa said it is concerning that there are young people who have been educated but unemployed.
"This is an issue and a challenge we are going to address. We should come up with an intervention and program that says no graduate should go unemployed," he said.
