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Today the DA Youth is submitting a complaint to the Public Protector in light of the revelations in a reply to a Parliamentary question that the National Youth Development Agency (NYDA) spent, among other items, R969 000 on berets and R490 000 on t-shirts for their 2012 youth day event in Port Elizabeth.

We will be asking her to investigate the spending of funds at this event by NYDA as well as the Presidency and the Eastern Cape Provincial government.

This spending constitutes a gross waste of funds intended for youth development. The R2. 852 000 in total given by the Presidency to the NYDA for this event could have created 77 new jobs for young people - if administered through a youth wage subsidy. Surely this could be a better use of state funds than berets and t-shirts.

This complaint marks yet another in a long string of cases currently under investigation by the Public Protector in respect of the NYDA.

In October 2011, the DA Youth laid a complaint in respect of the blatant political bias displayed by the NYDA in their public support of the ANC Youth League (ANCYL) march that took place during that month, which at the time we asserted was not only an unacceptable conflation of party and state, but unlawful and unconstitutional. Besides violating the Public Service Act, it appeared to be in contravention of section 195 (1) (d) of the Constitution which states that “services must be provided impartially fairly, equitably and without bias.”

We then submitted a second complaint in March 2012 when further evidence of this practice came to light through the alleged spending of state funds allocated to the NYDA by the Eastern Cape Social Development Department on ANCYL summits.

In addition to submitting evidence of the continuing political manipulation of the agency earlier this year, the DA Youth also requested the Public Protector to broaden the scope of the investigation to include the alleged nepotism practiced by agency CEO, Steven Ngubeni, who reportedly awarded a R22 million catering contract for the World Festival of Youth and Students to a family member.

Added to this, the DA Youth wrote to President Zuma in August to request he reject the list of National Youth Development (NYDA) national board nominees on the grounds that if the current list of nominees were to be appointed, the NYDA would once again be grossly over politicized and open to the continued political manipulation we witnessed throughout the tenure of the previous board.

Almost three months later we are yet to have a response from the President, all the while the NYDA continues to be allowed to rob South Africa’s youth of any real future.

We urge the Public Protector to please speed up her numerous investigations into mismanagement at the agency to prevent the continued waste of vital youth development money on what has essentially become an ANCYL slush fund.