Malema condemns Zuma's absence at Youth Day rally
20 Jun 2012 08:12 - Sapa
Expelled ANCYL leader Julius Malema claims President Jacob Zuma undermined the youth by attending a G20 summit instead of joining a Youth Day rally. Expelled ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema. (M&G)
“President Zuma undermines the youth of South Africa,” Malema said in North West province on Tuesday, according to an SABC report. “How can he leave June 16 [Youth Day]?,” asked Malema.
Zuma’s spokeperson, Mac Maharaj, said the president’s schedule had to be adjusted for him to travel to Mexico. Maharaj denied reports that Zuma wanted to avoid being heckled at the Youth Day rally.
The Sunday Times reported that Zuma “dodged” the event because he expected to be booed and ridiculed by Malema supporters.
Malema also criticised the ANC’s march to the Goodman Gallery in Johannesburg to protest against The Spear, a painting depicting Zuma with exposed genitals.
“They want to march for a spear but none of them has ever marched against rape,” said Malema.
“That week when they were marching for a spear, there was a young girl who was raped by seven boys.
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None of them said let us march against these boys.”
The ANC in Limpopo this week condemned the reported rape of a five-year-old girl in the province. She had already allegedly been raped three times by three different men in her lifetime. - Sapa
Labels: AFRICAN YOUTH DAY, ANC YOUTH LEAGUE, JACOB ZUMA, JULIUS MALEMA, MAC MAHARAJ
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President Micheal Sata’s full speech delivered at the commemoration of the national youth day
TIME PUBLISHED - Monday, March 12, 2012, 5:45 pm
President Michael Sata was among hundreds of people witnessing the commemoration of the Youth day at the Freedom statue. The President led the defence chiefs, members of the diplomatic corps in laying wreaths, as the Zambia Army brass band played solemn music. As part of the celebrations, Cadet’s fired a 12- gun salute at the freedom statue. President Sata also took time to greet Chief Justice Ernest Sakala, Diplomats accredited to Zambia, PF party officials and Youths.
Mr. Sata also watched a match past by youths from various schools and organisations. Also present at the Freedom statue was Vice President Guy Scott , Cabinet Ministers, Members of the diplomatic corps and several senior government officials.
Below is the full speech delivered by the president at the occasion:
Speech by his excellency, Mr. Michael Chilufya Sata, President of the Republic of Zambia, at the commemoration of the national youth day on 12th march, 2012 Freedom statute, lusaka
Theme: “accelerating youth empowerment for sustainable national development”
Salutation:
Director of Ceremonies;
Honourable Chishimba Kambwili MP, Minister of Youth and Sport;
My Lord, the Chief Justice of the Republic of Zambia, Mr. Ernest sakala,
The Honourable Dr. Patrick Matibini SC, Speaker of the National Assembly;
Honourable Cabinet and Deputy Ministers;
Your excellency, Dr. Kenneth Kaunda, First President of the Republic of Zambia;
Your excellency, Mr. Rupiah Banda, Fourth President of the Republic of Zambia;
Secretary to the Cabinet, Mr. Evans Chibiliti;
Senior Government Officials;
Your Excellencies Ambassadors, High Commissioners and Representatives of International Agencies accredited to Zambia;
Distinguished invited guests;
The Youths of Zambia;
Members of the press;
Ladies and gentlemen:
Address:
It gives me great pleasure this morning to address this gathering, and through you, the nation at large on this important occasion of the national youth day.
Zambia every year celebrates 12th of march as national youth day to remember the contributions of the gallant youth of this nation for their role in the political independence of the country.
Now, the celebrations provide us the opportunity to review our performance of what we have achieved for the youth and to reflect on what we need to do in order to improve their well being.
Today is also an opportunity to the Zambian youth to express their views on issues affecting their wellbeing.
It is a day for the youth of Zambia to enjoy their rights and freedom and also to reflect on their obligations, responsibility and contribution towards national development.
This is also a challenge to every Zambian youth to tell the nation of what has been their personal contribution to self and national development.
It is a challenge to every Zambian youth to critically look at oneself to find out whether you are part of society’s problems or you are part of solutions to society’s problems.
It is time for a paradigm shift and repositioning oneself in an effort to contribute positively to national development.
Distinguished guests, ladies & gentlemen, the youth:
No country can attain its social and economic development goals without the active participation of the youth.
However, the Zambian youth are yet to play their positive role in the quest to promote youth participation in national development.
On our party, our government will guarantee educational and employment opportunities for the youth.
Government is seeking to address some of the challenges by using locally driven socio- economic initiatives to empower citizens while recognizing the important role the donor community plays in complementing such initiatives.
We are seeking an inclusive government and open our doors to all stakeholders in running the affairs of the state.
The theme for this year’s national youth day: “Accelerating Youth Empowerment for Sustainable National Development,” is very appropriate at a time when the patriotic front government has committed itself to empowering the youth to catalyze them to take up their right place in society.
In the past two decades the youth were not at the centre regarding their participation in the national development.
This has been due to inadequate resources targeted at youth development and as such, the majority of the youth in Zambia has remained unemployed, ill-educated and without formal skills to enable them earn a living.
It is therefore time we invested optimally in the youth and ensure that they participate in the socio-economic development of the country.
Distinguished guests, the youth, ladies and gentlemen:
May I take this opportunity to salute the Zambian youth for peacefully participating in the september 2011 general elections.
The peaceful change of government that took place is a true reflection of the entrenchment of democracy in our country.
We should indeed be proud as a people for such a remarkable achievement.
Now that elections are behind us, it is time for us all to focus on forging ahead with the development of our country.
On my part, I wish to reiterate my pledge to make Zambia a better place for all youths in line with the patriotic front vision which is, and I quote:“the citizens of this great land not only deserve better lives but are entitled to better living.”
To all the Zambian youths, I say it is time to put Zambia first in the interest of achieving our social and economic development.
You are therefore urged to participate by utilizing the available developmental programmes that are aimed at both empowering you and empowering the country.
My dear youths, country men and women:
Zambia this year celebrates forty-eight (48) years of independence amidst high poverty levels in the country.
Despite being endowed with a lot of natural resources, the country has continued to face staggering poverty and low formal sector employmentopportunities for our dear youths.
The recently pronounced economic growth characterized by the classification of Zambia as a middle income country is meaningless if it does not make noticeable impact on poverty reduction among our people especially the youth.
I would therefore like to see that the pronouncements in economic performance translate into substantial reduction in poverty indicators and creation of employment opportunities.
The challenge of our government is therefore to improve the quality of life of the Zambian youth especially those in rural areas.
Our goal is to achieve higher and sustainable economic growth that will uplift the well-being of our youth and the poor in our society.
To this end, the patriotic front government is introducing programmes to accelerate the socio-economic empowerment of citizens especially women and youths.
Offering employment opportunities for our people, especially many young men and women leaving educational institutions is critical to the fulfillment of the patriotic front manifesto which promises job creation and putting more money in our people’s pockets.
Distinguished guests, youths, ladies and gentlemen:
Our government shall concentrate its efforts on skills development and creating self-employment opportunities especially for the youths of our country.
The Patriotic Front electoral victory achieved in the 2011 tripartite elections is owed in large measure to our young generation.
It is them who were among the large numbers of our citizens that worked so hard to bring about the desired change last year.
We therefore owe them jobs by creating employment opportunities when they graduate from colleges, universities and skills training centres.
This shall be done through equipping the youth with skills and business enterprise know-how and the financing needed for self-employment and entry into the formal sector.
My government has in the last five months of our being in office made tremendous strides in trying to improve the wellbeing of our dear youth and these include:
i. Construction of district youth skills training centres—our government has provided for more than K10.3 billion in this year’s budget for the construction of district youth skills training centres and rehabilitation.
We are currently constructing twelve (12) centres in all the ten provinces.
Once complete, these centres will offer vocational and life skills to the youth for improved and sustainable livelihoods.
Our government has further provided K50 billion in this year’s budget for youth skills training development.
All these measures are meant to put more money in the pockets of our youths.
ii. Youth development fund: the pf government realizes that the youths face a number of challenges to access money from banks and other financial institutions.
This has hampered many young people from venturing in business for wealth and employment creation.
Therefore government has provided K11 billion this year for the promotion of youth enterprise development and provide less cumbersome and cheaper finance.
I am therefore challenging all the youths countrywide to come up with viable project/business proposals so that they can access the money to create their own businesses and be able to positively contribute to national development.
Your government is committed and determined to come up with initiatives that are meant to provide a framework for an informed and effective support in the design, monitoring and evaluation of policies and programmes that will promote productive and job-rich growth for our Zambian youth.
It is my desire that the patriotic front government shall achieve the following in the next five years:
i. Design and include youth employment strategies in national development frameworks;
ii. Improve the livelihoods and employability for the youth; and
iii. Establish sustainable political will, leadership and technical capacity for achieving results on youth employment creation.
I therefore call upon the Honourable Minister of Youth and Sport to initiate the process of coming up with a detailed programme and action plan on youth empowerment.
This should be reflective of national circumstances and should take into account consultations with stakeholders among them, the youth, the united nations agencies and the commonwealth youth programme through well organized and coordinated national youth consultative forum.
My office expects to receive the final draft of the action plan on youth empowerment in Zambia by the 30th september, 2012.
Distinguished guests, dear youths, ladies and gentlemen:
I am aware that the absence of the office of the district youth development officer is negatively affecting delivering services to our dear youths.
I therefore direct the permanent secretaries at the public service management division and ministry of youth and sport to expedite the process of establishing and filling the office of the district youth development officer.
This shall enhance service delivery and ensure accelerated empowerment for the youth.
Furthermore, you should ensure that all district youth vocational training centres are adequately and appropriately staffed including the newly constructed centres.
Distinguished guests, dear youths, ladies and gentlemen:
I now wish to thank organisations and cooperating partners who have jointly worked with my government in making this year’s youth week and day celebrations successful.
I further wish to thank the youths of Zambia through various youth organizations, government ministries, private sector and public institutions for their participation in the march past today and other activities during youth week.
I thank you and may God the Almighty richly bless the Republic of Zamba and its people!
Labels: AFRICAN YOUTH DAY, ERNEST SAKALA, MICHAEL SATA, SPEECHES
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Youths need more and decent jobs
By The Post
Mon 12 Mar. 2012, 12:00 CAT
MARCH 12, Youth Day, is an opportunity for the youths to march, parade carrying banners with all sorts of messages and demands in the hope of satisfying those demands or some of those demands. Youth Day actually seems to be a mockery for the youths. Next year they will return once again carrying the same banners with the same messages and demands. It seems nothing, or very little, will be granted to the youths without them putting up a fight.
The youths seem to now be realising that they have to fight to attain anything from this order. Anything they have attained has been granted to them only after a gruelling fight. They have to keep up a constant fight in order to obtain some small benefit in this political, social and economic order. They have to fight so that their most elemental rights would be respected.
Therefore, every Youth Day they have to come carrying demands. What else can they do? They know that what they cannot do for themselves nobody will do for them. The youth knows that what he cannot win by his own work, nobody will win for him.
The youth always works for others but no one works for him. The youth campaigns for council, parliamentary and presidential candidates but no one campaigns for him; nobody ever works for him. The youth gives everything with generosity, he gives his sweat and energy; he gives his life.
Many times he is denied his hours of rest. The youth gives to everybody, but to him nobody ever gives anything. The youths are the majority of the people. The majority of our police officers are youths; the majority of our soldiers are youths; the majority of those who provide all sorts of services in our country are youths.
They are the most productive part of our population, they are the ones who make sacrifices, who work, they are today and they will be tomorrow, they will always be the majority of the people. But they don't govern. They are the majority, but others governed in their stead and governed against them.
They invented a democracy for them - a strange, a very strange democracy, in which they, who were the majority, did not count for anything. Although the youths were the ones who produced the majority of the wealth, many of them have nothing.
They have created a very strange democracy for the youths - a democracy in which the youths who were the majority, who were the majority of the voters do not even exist politically within society, do not count for anything. And thus, despite their tremendous force, despite their sacrifices, despite their work for others in our national life, despite the fact that they were the majority, they never governed nor counted for anything. They are not taken into account.
And that they are calling democracy! Democracy is where the majority governs. Democracy is that form of government in which the majority are taken into account. Democracy is that form of government in which the interests of the majority are defended.
It is said that a society which values its future affords the highest priority to the welfare and development of all its young people, of its youths. This is so because the world belongs to them; the future belongs to them. Zambia's future belongs to the youths.
Without meaningful participation and engagement of our youths in all areas of human endeavour, we will not make much progress as a country. The youths are the most active and vital force in society. They are the most eager to learn and the least conservative in their thinking.
Zambia must care for her youths and show concern for the growth of the younger generation. Young people have to study and work, but they are at the age of physical growth. Therefore, full attention must be paid to both their work and study and to their recreation, sport and rest.
We know that youth should be a time of energy and expectations; dreams about the future; a time of hope. Many of our older generations were fortunate enough to have those choices, opportunities and people who believed in them; who gave them the chance to fulfil their aspirations.
The issue is, of course, that for too many, this is far from the reality that they know today. We are now facing not only an economic challenge but also a social crisis in the face of the deficit of decent jobs for our young people. A record number of our young men and women are currently jobless.
A growing number, although they work, face economic insecurity and even working poverty. At the individual level, the result is reduced self-esteem, discouragement, diminished levels of well-being and as Thompson Luzendi, president of the Copperbelt University Students Union, has observed, most youths have resorted to beer drinking because they are stressed and depressed.
There is also a great social and economic loss accompanying all this. But we shouldn't lose hope; it gets dark sometimes, but the morning comes. Don't surrender. Suffering breeds character. Character breeds faith. In the end faith will not disappoint.
You must not surrender. You must never surrender. Things will get better. We know the spark of hope is never lost. Let's cling on to the belief that things may turn for the better, never buried. And the feeling that what you really need is a fair chance to prove yourself in life, never discarded. But we must not weigh down the resilience of the human spirit.
So, access to productive and decent work, the dignity of work, is indispensable if our young people are to realise their aspirations, improve their living conditions and make a positive contribution to the progress of our country. Decent work for the youths opens opportunities instead of closing doors.
It is enabling and empowering, putting the youths on a path of opportunity and spurring them to invest in themselves, in society, and in political stability. We need policies that can help ensure that our youths are adequately trained and continue to receive training. Of course, there is a cost to all this - but abandoning the youths brings a much, much greater cost.
There is need for all our leaders to listen to the messages and demands of our youths as they march and parade before them on this Youth Day, on this March 12. Let's be frank, actually listening to the voice of the youths, which is not done enough, is key to bringing about policy convergence. We all know that investing in our youths is investing in our future. But we also know that we are not doing it well today.
So let's make the right choices to do what is right for our youths. Youth unemployment has reached unprecedented and intolerable dimensions. It is time to concentrate on pro-employment strategies for youths that would eventually sustain consumption, boost demand, promote growth and create more jobs. But this should not be seen as an agenda for government only; it is also for the business and private sector.
But there is need for the government to provide a wide variety of incentives to promote youth employment. The youths are not happy. They are every day telling us that they are not happy with the way they are being treated.
Do we want to wait until they explode? The need for decent jobs, social justice and dignity, on the one hand, and anger against inequality and greed, on the other, are at the forefront of our youths' displeasure that is slowly turning into anger and which may, if not addressed quickly, lead to political and social instability.
A real transformation is needed to reform current policies and attitudes towards the youths and their plight.
Labels: AFRICAN YOUTH DAY, JOBS, UNEMPLOYMENT, YOUTHS
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MMD to boycott Youth Day celebrations
By Bright Mukwasa
Sun 11 Mar. 2012, 11:58 CAT
MMD youth will boycott tomorrow's Youth Day celebrations because of the PF's harassment of its members, according to a Lusaka youth leader. MMD Lusaka district youth chairperson Watson Mtonga yesterday said that party leaders including its youths had suffered at the hands of violent PF cadres and no government official had condemned the acts.
He told the press that since the MMD lost last September's elections, their properties had been looted, members beaten but the government had done nothing to restrain its cadres.
"Our youth are being harassed every day and some of them are in hiding because even police are knocking on their doors every day. We can't attend the Youth Day because we have seen that we are not protected by the police," Mtonga said.
"We cannot celebrate when our leaders are being persecuted. Every day you read the papers you're being told this one and that one has been arrested and giving them fake charges."
He said allegations of corruption against former leaders were an act of intimidation.
Mtonga said the defeat of the party did not mean that it must be obliterated.
He appealed to the Inspector General of Police Stella Libongani to be fair in the manner the police handled MMD and the violence it suffered from the ruling party.
Mtonga also said his party would support the youth of Mazabuka who intend to protest over the realignment of districts.
He said his party would send busloads of youth to Southern Province to go and give solidarity to the UPND youth who were expected to protest.
Mtonga also said his party would fight "nail and tooth" over the removal of Rupiah Banda's immunity.
He challenged President Michael Sata to deliver the jobs and 'more money' that he promised the youth prior to the elections.
Mtonga also said his party supported the demands civil servants were making and President Sata must deliver as he had promised to increase their salaries and conditions of service once voted for.
He said the President's threats against public workers were unjustified.
He said President Sata's failure to deliver on the many promises he made to the youth would be tantamount to duping his way to State House.
Labels: AFRICAN YOUTH DAY, MMD, MMD YOUTH LEAGUE, YOUTHS
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Zimbabwe to mark African Youth Day
Herald Reporter
THE commemoration of the African Youth Day this Sunday presents a unique opportunity to showcase the potentials of the African youth, reflect on progress made and design strategies to enhance their welfare, a Cabinet Minister has said.
Youth Development, Indigenisation and Empowerment Minister Saviour Kasukuwere said the commemoration would further provide the youth with a platform to promote their visibility.
He said it would also provide a platform for the youth to exhibit their skills at national level, thereby encouraging increased investment in youth development at local, regional and international levels.
The Minister was addressing a joint Press conference with the acting Unicef country representative, Mr Marc Rubin, ahead of the commemorations to be held at Africa Unity Square in the capital.
"The African Youth Day is a means to encourage innovation and creativity among young people, and to strengthen youth participation in various aspects of the economic, social and political development of their countries," said Minister Kasukuwere.
"It is also a means of strengthening solidarity and involvement of young people in actions promoting stability, peace and sustainable economic development."
He noted that this year’s commemoration comes at a time when there have been many positive developments in youth programmes in the continent.
The developments include Zimbabwe’s Ratification of the African Youth Charter in March 2009, which came into effect on August 8 2009 and the declaration of 2009 to 2018 as the African Youth Decade.
Speaking at the same occasion, Mr Rubin hailed Zimbabwe for showing commitment to issues related to youth and child participation.
He said the African Youth Day should also be a reminder of the role of the youths in Africa’s development.
Labels: AFRICAN YOUTH DAY, SAVIOUR KASUKUWERE
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