Structural overhaul for battling ANCYL

Bid to save dysfuncional, demoralised Western Cape region

IN AN attempt to get out of its moribund state the Western Cape ANC Youth League has embarked on a structural overhaul that includes replacing executive committees in some of its regions. The move follows an assessment of the league’s regions, some of which it said were dysfunctional and had low morale.

ANCYL provincial chairperson Muhammad Khalid Sayed said yesterday the league’s provincial executive committe (PEC) had decided, after an investigation of regional structures, to replace the regional executive committees in the Southern Cape and West Coast and to restructure the Regional Task Team of the Boland and the Dullah Omar (Cape Metro) region.

The Overberg needed to be rebuilt completely, while the Central Karoo needed five more branches in preparation for a regional congress, said Sayed.

During the investigation of the structures, the PEC found that many young people were interested in being politically active, but there were either no branches in many of the regions or there was a lack credible regional structures, which had either collapsed or were on the brink of collapse, said Sayed.

With the restructure came the need for creative and innovative thinking, to give the ANCYL back their “voice and vibrancy”, which had been lost through senior politicians using youths to deliver them to power, and politicians who then fed them crumbs, said Sayed.

“We must have independence, we need to unite as young people and not be child soldiers for senior leaders,” the youth league said.

The moves to rebuild a once vibrant, militant and active provincial youth league were discussed at the PEC.

The league said: “The ANCYL plan to build vibrant, real branches in all the provincial wards that can properly champion radical economic transformation in the province and effectively take on the plight of young people in our poor communities.”

It expressed solidarity with communities affected by crimes against women MONDAY MAY 22 2017 and children, and said it would embark on a programme to tackle crime.

“In addition to engaging the ministry of police and non-governmental formations around immediate crime prevention strategies that the youth can lead, ours is to demand and practically ensure that socio-economic conditions, including poor living conditions, and the lack of economic opportunities for our youth that lead to drug abuse, are uprooted.”

Carl Pophaim, the DA’s Youth Cape Metro convener, said the ANCYL had often gone to congress hampered by “internal and fickle politics” that resulted in them “consistently failing to represent young people.

He said it was no surprise that the ANCYL had disbanded structures, but it remained disappointing.