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It has come to the attention of the NEC of the IFP Youth Brigade that
the ANC Youth League President Julius Malema and the Young Communist
League National Secretary Buti Manamela, have been invited to be
guest speakers at the first Southern African Regional Meeting of the
Pan African Youth Union which starts in Johannesburg today.

We are of the opinion that by giving these two youth leaders the
platform to address the conference, the National Youth Development
Agency (NYDA) will abusing taxpayers' money to promote the political
agenda of the ruling party, instead of using this platform to promote
a national and Southern African youth agenda.

It is a well-known fact that the predecessor of the NYDA, the National
Youth Commission and Umsobomvu Youth Fund failed, because it ended up
being little more than a patronage scheme for ANC comrades. It now
appears that the NYDA is set to repeat the same mistakes of the
previous government's youth initiatives.

The IFPYB believes that the blurring of the boundary between the state
and the ruling party is not only unacceptable, but is increasingly
threatening our young democracy.

We have requested an explanation from the Chairperson of the NYDA
Andile Lungisa and the Minister in The Presidency: Performance,
Monitoring and Evaluation and Administration, Mr Collins Chabane, as
to why Mr Malema and Mr Manamela, who are not government officials,
will be given the opportunity to address this Southern African youth
conference.

Furthermore, IFPYB NEC has called on the NYDA to remove both Mr Malema
and Mr Manamela as speakers from the program.

We must demand that the NYDA spend their R1-billion budget of
taxpayers' money to promote opportunities for all South African youth
and not only those aligned to ANC and its alliance partners. Equally,
we must demand from the NYDA, which is a government organisation and
not a wing of the ANC youth league, to act in a non-partisan manner at
all times so as to build a united youth and country.