The ANC Youth League finally elected its top structure at its 26th Elective Congress and it says its task is to mobilise young people ahead of the 2024 National General Elections.
The ANCYL was disbanded in 2019 and the ANC NEC appointed a National Youth Task Team to rebuild the branches of the Youth League ahead of its conference in Nasrec this weekend.
On Saturday, the ANCYL elected its top structure unopposed after some of the candidates who were nominated from the floor failed to meet the 25% threshold.
The ANC Youth League top structure:
President is Collen Malatji
Deputy President is Pumzile Mgcina
Treasure General is Zwelo Masilela
Secretary-General is Mntuwoxolo Ngudle
1st Deputy Secretary-General is Tsakani Shiviti
2nd Deputy Secretary-General is Olga Seate
Masilela said the ANCYL will start mobilising the youth as the country prepares for general elections and the key thing was to abide by the constitution of the ANC Youth League.
“We must ensure that we keep to the tasks of mobilising and rallying young people behind the banner of the ANC. And of course ensuring that we remain sharp in raising issues of young people and the downtrodden people of South Africa particularly the unemployed, the poor and the marginalised man, women and the youth,” said Masilela.
Masilela promised to push for economic reforms as the country battles with joblessness.
“At the centre of the problem of young people is unemployment and when you talk about unemployment, you need to talk about economic empowerment. Economic empowerment is not a slogan but we should be clear what you mean and one of the key things we always speak about is reindustrialisation of South Africa,” said Masilela
“We need to reduce our import market and ensure that we export instead most of the key products. We must process some of the minerals that are in the country and reopen many industries that would have been closed because of the cheaper market coming from the countries like tiger Asian markets,” he added.
The ANCYL is expected to elect additional members on Sunday and President Cyril Ramaphosa is scheduled to give the closing remarks at the conference.
