It is cause for concern indeed if, as the Economic Freedom Fighters contends, skilled professionals – potentially valuable and productive nominees for board positions at the National Youth Development Agency (NYDA) – have been overlooked in favour of under-qualified candidates named by the parliamentary ad hoc committee tasked with the board’s selection process.
The controversial government-funded NYDA was established in 2008 to provide bursaries, seed capital and opportunities for budding entrepreneurs, but has been bedeviled throughout by resignations and criminal charges laid against executives – sparking speculation about the agency’s effectiveness or, indeed, whether its existence is necessary at all.
The EFF maintains that of the six ANC Youth League executives shortlisted, only two had the required tertiary qualifications. The EFF typified this as “deployed semi-literate youths who will not add meaningful value”, while accountants, lawyers and experienced auditors had been overlooked.
These are serious allegations and seem to smack of the cronyism redolent in the criticisms on how the inner circles of the ANC operate.
It might be a viable option, as the EFF has suggested, that the selection process be revisited. The country’s already embattled youth do not deserve to be further handicapped by controversy.
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