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Every June, South Africans rightly pause to honour the courage and sacrifice of the young people of 1976. Their struggle was about more than education. It was about dignity, opportunity and the right to build a better future.

Fifty years later, a difficult question confronts us: what does freedom mean to a young person who cannot find work?

For too many young people in Gauteng, the promise of opportunity remains out of reach. Youth unemployment remains unacceptably high. Thousands of graduates are unable to find work. Many young entrepreneurs struggle to access markets, finance and support. Others have simply stopped looking for opportunities altogether because they have lost faith that those opportunities exist.

This should concern all of us.

Gauteng remains the economic heart of South Africa. Our province contributes more than a third of the country’s economy. We have world-class infrastructure, major industries, financial institutions, innovation hubs and a young population eager to work and build businesses.

Yet economic growth has remained stubbornly low for more than a decade. At the same time, unemployment has remained painfully high.

The challenge is not that government does not understand the problem.

In recent weeks, the Gauteng Legislature’s Portfolio Committee on Economic Development received presentations on the province’s Economic Growth and Development Plan, departmental programmes, infrastructure projects and budget allocations. There is no shortage of plans, strategies, frameworks and visions for economic growth.

The problem is implementation. When one looks beyond the presentations and examines the actual infrastructure projects that are meant to drive economic growth, a troubling picture emerges.

Industrial parks intended to support manufacturing and local economic development have been delayed for years because of unresolved planning and approval processes. Some are now reportedly at risk of cancellation.

The West Rand Special Economic Zone continues to face regulatory delays. The Vaal Special Economic Zone remains caught up in approval and coordination challenges. Across multiple projects, the recurring obstacle is not a lack of funding. It is not even a lack of investors. The recurring obstacle is government itself.

• One department is waiting for another department.
• One sphere of government is waiting for another sphere of government
• One approval process delays another approval process.
• Government is delaying government.

While this happens, young people continue waiting for jobs. The uncomfortable truth is that young people do not experience strategies. They experience outcomes.

This is why economic growth must become more than a policy objective. It must become a delivery objective. Government should be measured less by the number of plans it launches and more by the number of projects it completes.

Less by the number of conferences, it hosts and more by the number of jobs that are created. Less by the number of strategies, it publishes and more by the number of investments that materialise on the ground.

The young people of 1976 fought for a future they believed would offer greater opportunity than the one they inherited.

The best way to honour their legacy is not through speeches and commemorations alone. It is by building an economy that gives today’s young people a genuine chance to succeed.

Most importantly, it means recognising that every delayed project and every stalled investment carry a human cost measured in opportunities lost and jobs never created.

This Youth Month, Gauteng does not need another strategy. It needs action. Because young people cannot build their futures on plans. They need jobs, opportunity and an economy that works.

Issued by ActionSA Gauteng Provincial Chairperson Funzi Ngobeni MPL