WATCH: ANC calls on Youth League to respect members after Nxesi ‘insults’

The African National Congress (ANC) has called on its Youth League to show more respect for members after newly elected president Collen Malatji attacked Minister for Employment and Labour Thulas Nxesi.

Malatji lambasted Nxesi about the high unemployment rate during his address of the second leg of the African National Congress Youth League’s (ANCYL) 26th National Congress on 5 August 2023.

“We are no longer going to delegate this responsibility to pensioners. The responsibility to take this country forward is upon us, but you can’t do that if you have no solutions.

“That Thulas Nxesi, who is the minister of employment but it appears like he is minister of unemployment, I don’t know when we are removing him but it’s an urgent matter.”

Watch Collen Malatji’s ‘attack’ on Thulas Nxesi:

ANC responds

In a statement on Monday, the ANC criticised Malatji for his “insults”.

“Whilst the ANC encourages the Youth League to robustly and outspokenly pursue the interests of young people, we urge that this should be done without denigrating personalities. Whilst we encourage an analysis of many issues confronting South Africans, we do not encourage insults on deployees who are seized with these issues,” the party said.

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The ANC said as a liberation movement, any critical thought should be premised on substantive analysis and solution-based thinking.

“As such, the ANC takes exception to the utterances by the Youth League on Thulas Nxesi.”

Vocal

Malatji has been vocal since taking leadership of the ANCYL.

Last month, he took a swipe at Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) leader Julius Malema, saying he was fired from the governing party for ill-discipline.

“Malema was fired for economic freedom? That’s not true, that’s a lie that must be clarified. He was fired for ill-discipline. He was fired for contravening the constitution of the ANC and the youth league.

“He wanted to create a youth league to be a cult organisation that belongs to him like the EFF. In the EFF, no matter how educated you are, you can’t even speak. Educated doctors who you see, they run around with water everywhere,” Malatji said.

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