NYDA comes under fire again

2011-06-15 15:07

Johannesburg - The National Youth Development Agency came under fire again, when the Pan Africanist Youth Congress of Azania (Payco) on Wednesday called it a "disgusting" organisation that lacked vision.

"It is not a secret that the NYDA's existence has become a virtual rather than a physical phenomenon because it lacks interest in positioning youth development at the centre of the national development agenda," Payco secretary general Lucky Khoza said in a statement.

The NYDA was inevitably bound to fail "from the word go”, he said.

"It did not come as a surprise to us..."

Khoza accused the organisation of failing to deliver its mandate and described it as "an ANCYL employment agency" that had no power to generate policies, and programmes.

NYDA's lack of vision also came at a time when "brutal attempts are being made to retard, dwarf and stunt the mental development of young African people through mis-education", Khoza said.

Azanian People's Organisation Youth president Amukelani Ngobeni said on Monday that NYDA would drag "a historic event such as Youth Day through the mud".

"A few years back, with all the evidence at his disposal, President [Jacob] Zuma did what he seems to be mastering ‘through a blind eye’ at obvious, corrupt and unscrupulous individuals in his youth movement and went on to launch the NYDA, a cocktail of disasters, the merger of Msobomvu and the Youth Commission," Ngobeni said.

"We call on all young people in the country to stay away from parties organised by NYDA in the name of June 16.

"It is our responsibility as the youth of Azapo to stand up and tell NYDA and [the] ANC government to stop telling lies about June 16, stop claiming victories which you do not know how they came to be."

The United Democratic Movement last month also called NYDA an employment agency for the ANC Youth League.

- SAPA