Youth left high and dry after summit fiasco

THE provincial youth council summit in Port Elizabeth was marred by controversy when delegates were left without accommodation.

Sources close to the summit preparations revealed to the Dispatch that, on the first day of the summit last week, delegates only checked into their rooms in at the Summerstrand Inn after 4am, about 11 hours after registration started.

“On Saturday after the completion of the programme, just after midnight, delegates were left without rooms as no accommodation had been prepared.

“Some had to drive home in the middle of the night and [others] found a place with friends or with delegates whose accommodation had been arranged by their respective institutions,” a source said.

The Dispatch also learnt that the provincial DA youth had not been invited to the summit or the Youth Parliament in Bhisho.

DA youth chairman and spokesman for the DA Students’ Organisation (Daso) Ondela Kepe confirmed that his party’s youth had not been invited to either event.

“We do not recognise this council, as it does not represent all the young people in the province,” Kepe said.

DA MPL Veliswa Mvenya also lashed out at the local government and traditional affairs department’s failure to invite her party’s youth.

“The ANC is playing politics using public funds. This council was meant to develop all the young people regardless of their party affiliation,” Mvenya said.

Local government and traditional affairs spokesman Mvusiwekhaya Sicwetsha denied the DA youth had not been invited.

“One wonders how they can utter such remarks about a meeting they didn’t attend, though they were invited,” Sicwetsha said.

“The programme was meant to end at about 5pm but finished seven hours later. No accommodation or supper had been organised for delegates,” COPE Youth Movement’s Sfundo Mlinda said.