Ngiyabbonga Sihlalo,

In turbulent times it is affirming to remember Madam Speaker that we are free: free from oppression, free from colonialism and free from domination by one race over another.

A high price has been paid for this freedom, extracted as it was from a “lost generation” – the generation of 1976 – which sacrificed their own future to ensure freedom for generations to come.

Let us take a minute Madam Speaker to fully appreciate their sacrifice.

For it was this sacrifice of this generation of youth, that, more than any other, defeated white supremacy, ended institutionalised racism and provided the very impetus for the peaceful transition to democracy brokered by Tata Madiba and others in 1994.

Our debt to the lost generation runs deep.

We dare never forget that an entire generation sacrificed themselves, their individual dreams, hopes and prospects so that we, as a nation, might reap the benefits of freedom, namely: full political and economic emancipation and participation.

And yet, political freedom has not resulted in meaningful economic participation for the vast majority of our people. The reality, instead, is a precarious situation in which two-thirds of adults are jobless and where 64% of young adults aged 15-35 are damned to a lifetime of unemployment.

This is the lost generation the ANC have created. Millions of young people without meaningful employment prospects and without any hope of the opportunity for a better life.

How can it be, Speaker, that under a democratic and free society – that so many are not free to live the lives of their choice? How is it Speaker that the liberators of our nation have constructed a democratic society which so ruthlessly excludes the young?

I put it to you Madam Speaker that the ANC of Jacob Zuma has failed, primarily, due to its failure to undertake the responsibilities concomitant with the rights associated with freedom.

These responsibilities at the very least mean adhering to the rule of law; defending our constitution; and governing in the best interests of and to the benefit of all the people.

Madam Speaker, I put it to you further – that Jacob Zuma’s ANC has failed on all three accounts.

One need only to reflect upon the Public Protector’s State Capture report or, remember that our president racks up criminal offense like most of us rack up speeding fines or, reminisce about the finding of the Constitutional Court where it ruled that the president had failed to uphold his oath of office – to fully grasp what a disaster the presidency of Jacob Zuma has been for our Country.

Economic growth has slowed to a crawl at less than 1 percent per annum; government debt service costs amount to R163.6 billion or 3.5% of GDP eroding any real chance our country has of realising the progressive provision of health care, welfare and education for our people. With over 100 dead at Esidimeni, with the imminent collapse of the social grant provision to the most vulnerable of our society and with our 3 million young adults not in education and training – ours is not a caring State, ours is not a competent state, ours is a state against the nation.

We in the Democratic Alliance are not, however, blind to the structural challenges bequeathed by Apartheid to the Democratic State. It is plainly evident that the Apartheid policy framework created an enormous financial, human and social capital deficit.

Apartheid created inequality not only in terms of education and therefore also income, but also in terms of other kinds of capital that enable or impede social mobility. Capital in its broadest sense includes:

• financial capital (such as ownership of financial assets, inheritance, land);
• human capital (health and education);
• cultural capital (which refers to the knowledge of institutions and systems in the economy such as the labour market);
• social capital (such as networks) or
• symbolic capital (referring to status or a place in society).

That whites have enjoyed dominance over these forms of capital, is indeed, a legacy of our apartheid past.

The failure to advance broad-based black capital accumulation is, however, the legacy of our ANC -present.

A 2015 Report entitled the South African Child Gauge notes critically that the Government’s narrow focus on black ownership of financial capital at the expense of broader capital accumulation will be insufficient to raise the vast black majority from deprivation.

The government’s single-minded focus on capital accumulation, mired in corruption as it is, has become nothing more than an elaborate ruse for the empowerment of the politically connected ANC elite.

As such, the ANC government is failing the very black majority that bled and died for our freedom.

This failure is inevitably resulting in yet another lost generation – except this time the generation isn’t sacrificing itself for freedom, it’s a generation being sacrificed by the ANC elites on the altar of greed and self-entitlement.

Madan Speaker, the DA will not stand for it.

We will continue to fight corruption with the full might of the law, while ensuring our metro and provincial governments give a real hand up to our people by developing their human, cultural and social capital.

Rescuing this lost generation is our nation’s greatest challenge. And it is the DA’s biggest mission.

Madame Speaker, just like the rising tide of the 1976 Lost Generation swept away Apartheid, come 2019, the ANC-birthed lost generation of the 21st century will sweep away the ANC and all its forms of rancid corruption.