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The newly elected leadership of the ANC Youth League (ANCYL) has trained its guns on the agency financing youth project the National Youth Development Agency (NYDA), and is set to remove its current leadership and replace them.
New ANCYL president Collen Maine says there are “no guarantees” that those sitting on the youth development board will finish their terms or be redeployed when their contracts come up for renewal next year.
The NYDA, with its R400 million budget, is one government agency where the ANC has placed most of its youth leaders.
The youth league’s leadership decides who sits on the board and in its executive, though normal recruitment processes are followed.
Delegates at the youth league’s national congress last weekend singled out a review of the youth agency’s mandate as “urgent”. There are new bosses in town.
“We must not hide that, as a leader of young people in society, the youth league will want to be at the helm of the NYDA. We want to drive this thing because we must drive the congress resolutions that we have taken on every platform we have,” says Maine.
Maine (34) says that “in politics it is a norm that when your term ends, there is no guarantee that you will come back. There is also a possibility that you may not finish your term, and that applies to the agency.
“They may be redeployed back home,” says Maine. However, he cautions that the league will be patient because it does not want to destabilise the organisation.
When the current NYDA board came into office in 2013, its mantra was to rid the agency of Julius Malema’s ghosts. Malema oversaw the appointment of his allies in key positions.
Now the tables are turned and those tasked with wiping away Malema’s fingerprints are out of favour.
NYDA chairperson Yershen Pillay is also chair of the Young Communist League. Pillay’s deputy is Maine’s homeboy, Kenny Morolong.
However, Maine and Morolong have not seen eye to eye for a while as Morolong launched a failed bid to elbow Maine out of the league’s presidential race. Maine’s election now casts doubt on Pillay and Morolong’s future at the youth agency.
Maine is keenly aware that shaking up the youth agency may seem like a political purge, but he is unapologetic
