The President of the ANC Youth League, Collen Malatji, has urged the party President Cyril Ramaphosa to ensure that Saturday’s National Executive Committee (NEC)’s January 8 Statement, embraces the high unemployment affecting young people in the country.
Malatji was addressing thousands of league members who were attending the Peter Mokaba Memorial Lecturer at the JM Ntsime Secondary School in Mogwase outside Rustenburg, a day before the party’s 114th anniversary celebrations at the Moruleng stadium.
Malatji said 2026 must be declared the year of the youth because of the crisis of high unemployment affecting mostly the youth.
“We are not going to allow the president to deliver a January 8 Statement that does not have youth interest insights.
The youth of South Africa is dispositioned from the economic activities of their own country.
We can no longer explain why over 30 years later the face of poverty in this country is still black while the face of wealth is still white,” said Malatji.
He cautioned that the electorate has grown impatient regarding unfulfilled promises.
“Our people will not understand anymore.
They have responded, they gave us 40% of their support and given 60% to all different political parties that don’t represent the interest of our people.
The moment the people lose respect and trust in you, they can do anything, they can even elect the ‘Monkey National Congress’ to do its best to resolve their socioeconomic problems,” warned the youth president.
The country’s youth unemployment rate remains critically high in 2025, hovering around 46.1% in the first half of the year, with the 15-24 age bracket facing even steeper figures, nearing 62.4%, despite slight fluctuations; millions of young people aged 15-34 were unemployed.
Statistics South Africa has also discovered that many more were not in employment, education, or training (NEET).
The situation highlights persistent economic exclusion, inadequate skills preparation, and low economic growth as key drivers, with particularly dire impacts in provinces like North West and the Eastern Cape.
The league has called on the Secretary General of the party, Fikile Mbalula who delivered the lecture, to honour and reflect on the life, legacy, and revolutionary contribution of the former league president, Peter Mokaba, popularly known as the Lion of the North,
Furthermore, the league called on government not to doubt the ability of many young people adding that they must be deployed in councils to turn lives of South Africans around.
Malatji stressed that that young people with proper qualification must be considered for deployment to serve the people of South Africa.
