Deputy President Paul Mashatile says economic growth and job creation have been the focus of the government as it works to address the high rate of unemployment in the country – especially among the youth.
Mashatile was addressing the youth as part of the 2024 Youth Day celebrations at the Peter Mokaba Stadium in Polokwane, Limpopo, on Sunday.
He says South Africa spends heavily on education and will continue to do so.
The Deputy President says he is confident that under the leadership of President Cyril Ramaphosa and the ANC-led Government of National Unity, the next five years will focus on implementing programmes to develop skills for the youth and reduce youth unemployment.
Mashatile says the government is committed to job creation. “We put our differences aside and elected President Cyril Ramaphosa. We are confident that under his leadership, we will continue to address the challenges that the youth are facing and make sure that we implement programs that are focused on skills development, and make sure that we have youth with the future as they are the future.”
SPEECH| …As we traverse the economic challenges, we urge the youth to adopt the same attitude as Hector Peterson, Mbuyisa Makhubu, Tsietsi Mashinini, and all the youth of 1976, whose sacrifices gave birth to our political freedom. #YouthDay2024https://t.co/r84f1NDZ9n pic.twitter.com/vSWOw0Xrry
— South African Government (@GovernmentZA) June 16, 2024
Youth Day 2024 | Deputy President Paul Mashatile to deliver keynote address:
‘Better opportunities’
However, some young people feel that 30 years into democracy, the government has not done enough to prevent young people from leaving the country for better opportunities abroad.
One says, “There’s a lot of people who are becoming educated in South Africa, as years go by I feel like job availability is going to be less. One thing I definitely think the government should be looking to do is to create more jobs which I honestly think is hard given that we live in a corrupt country and obviously a lot of people are going to be good for our economy because a lot of our skilled labour is going to into other countries.”
Another one adds, “I feel like there are not a lot of job opportunities for our people in our country. a lot of times when I speak to my peers everyone is speaking about migrating to different countries looking at opportunities overseas to try and get more opportunities.”
Youth unemployment:
About GNU
Other young people in Durban have welcomed the announcement of a government of national unity, saying they hope it will take the country forward.
“ANC was a very powerful party, but I definitely think that the coalition will have a lot more variety in the sense that more laws will be looked at. It will be a better run. I think it will be better in a sense that other parties will give their own view or insight into different beliefs,” expresses one person.
“It’s the first time that we have a coalition government nationally and provincially. we are used to being led by one political party. the parties will be able to work together and share ideas that will push the country forward,” adds a second person.
-Additional reporting by Fanele Mhlongo
