Give ANC people jobs – youth league leader
ANC Youth League president Collen Malatji has again urged Gauteng Premier Panyaza Lesufi not to “be scared” to hire ANC campaigners and members under the province’s Nasi Ispani jobs initiative.
The Economic Freedom Fighters, Democratic Alliance (DA), Actionsa and other parties have criticised the initiative, which was launched in June last year, accusing Lesufi of using it as an ANC cadre deployment project and a way of electioneering ahead of the general elections on 29 May.
In an interview with the Mail & Guardian on Monday, Malatji doubled down on his demand that the government should give ANC members jobs when recruiting for Nasi Ispani, which offered thousands of jobs to fill vacancies in provincial government sectors such as education, health and social development. It also includes crime wardens, who have been nicknamed “amapanyaza”.
“You are expecting somebody [to go] door-to-door without shoes telling people about a better life for all when they are in poverty. It doesn’t make sense,” Malatji said.
“There’s nowhere in the world where the ruling party would not want its policies in government to be implemented by people who are nonmembers of its party or nonaligned. It can’t work.”
ANC members are also subjected to unemployment, poverty and inequalities, Malatji said.
“There’s been a taboo in the streets that ANC members must not be employed. It can not be right that they are told they can’t get jobs because they are members of the ANC. It is wrong that members of the ANC must be excluded from employment, they must be full participants,” he said.
His comments come nearly two weeks after he said at a rally in Alexandra, Johannesburg that Nasi Ispani must benefit the people of Gauteng and ANC members should be given priority.
“We are saying, Comrade Panyaza, it mustn’t be Nasi Ispani of people of Mpumalanga and Limpopo who do not vote here. It must be Nasi Ispani of Gauteng people who will vote for the ANC,” Malatji said at the time.
Last month, DA premier candidate and Gauteng leader Solly Msimanga said if he was to be elected premier, the programme would not necessarily be scrapped but would need to be reevaluated. Actionsa Gauteng premier
candidate Funzi Ngobeni echoed these sentiments.
Msimanga added that the initiative must be implemented in a way that was financially sustainable and not using money intended for other projects.
Malatji said the Nasi ispani jobs were not only for ANC members, but everyone who wanted to apply.
He added that Lesufi should not fear employing ANC members over concerns raised by opposition parties.
“Adverts are made in public, people apply, if they reach the requirements, they are interviewed then employed. There’s no ANC that sits in HR [human resources department] of the government to do employment.”
Malatji said opposition parties were opposing the initiative just for the sake of it, and that they themselves
had been using Nasi Ispani to campaign.
“The problem we have is there is no opposition party in South Africa. It’s just a group of friends sitting somewhere fighting for seats in parliament,” he said.
“No one can explain why they are opposing the ANC, they are just duplicating what the ANC is saying and waiting for the ANC to make mistakes.”