Lions ready to roar on the first day of the ANCYL congress

The ANC Youth League’s 26th national congress is well on its way, albeit after intense delays, but the young lions are ready to roar.

While registrations of delegates had taken up all of Friday, the ANCYL officially opened its congress with ANC Secretary General Fikile Mbalula wishing the young ANC members well as they embark on the journey to renewal.

Mbalula told the youth league to reclaim its autonomy and be a necessary irritation for the mother body.

In a long address, Mbalula admitted that the road to the elective conference, which was taking place at the Nasrec Expo Centre, south of Johannesburg, had been a bumpy one.

He said the sitting of the conference was a chance for the league to elect their own leaders instead of being led by task teams appointed by the mother body.

Mbalula stressed that the youth league must embrace each other even when their opinions differ as people of South Africa look up to them.

If they fight each other to death, people will lose confidence in them and see them as people who are always at each other’s throats, he said.

“Stop this thing of despising, swearing at each other and fighting to the grave because in the process of that you are going to lose very young, capable leaders of the ANCYL with a great future,” he said.

The well-articulated political report of the ANCYL identified renewal of the organisation, expropriation of land without compensation and resolving the energy crisis as some of the challenges facing the organisation.

This was the first political report delivered by the ANCYL in almost a decade and was delivered, for the first time by a woman, acting convenor of the ANCYL Fasiha Hassan.

In her report, Hassan said the youth league must rise to the challenges.

She said the lack of jobs for the youth was a national crisis.

“This is a national crisis. The interventions, although novel, have not been sufficient to put a significant dent into this number. This ANCYL National Congress must put forward practical and determined interventions to cut the unemployment rate amongst young people,” she said.

“The bomb is going to explode and we as the Youth League will not be spared.”

Hassan called for the ANCYL to reclaim its autonomy and for the party’s structure to take its rightful place in the annals of history as agents of change as well as asserting the agenda of Economic Freedom and Social Change now, not later.

kailene.pillay@inl.co.za

IOL Politics