Chairperson, I would like to start by thanking Mrs Witbooi. What she has demonstrated is that brevity can constitute the essence of content. [Interjections.] [Laughter.] I really want to thank her because however brief her intervention was, I found it quite important.
I would like to address my comments to Mr Raju from the DP. [Interjections.] Yesterday in the National Assembly the representative of the DP said the same things. The only difference is in the words used. Mr Raju says it is difficult to tolerate a blas attitude. I hope he understand that it is difficult to tolerate a blas attitude with regard to his simple amendment also.
The DP won about 10% of the vote in the last election. Therefore by no stretch of the imagination could they be speaking on behalf of the majority of the youth of this country. If one put the ANC and IFP together, that would constitute, in the National Assembly, and certainly more here in the NCOP, at least 77% of the votes cast in the last election.
I take it Mr Raju is talking on behalf of the privileged youth of South Africa which constitutes 10%. [Interjections.] It would therefore not be surprising if the National Youth Commission were an unknown entity to this privileged youth.
Perhaps it would be more useful if the DP, instead of engaging in simple rhetoric, tried to be more constructive and informed their privileged youth, which constitute 10%, about the National Youth Commission, because they could then come with very constructive ideas about how we could improve the work of the National Youth Commission. Quite clearly, there is room for improvement and there are many challenges that the National Youth Commission faces. I would be very happy, as I have said, to receive new and critical ideas and creative approaches in order to improve the work that we have to do with regard to youth development.
I think it is also necessary for me to correct some incorrect facts here. It is not true that the National Youth Commission has ignored the question of HIV-Aids in South Africa. In fact, since its inception, one of the critical areas of its work has been precisely on this question. If the National Youth Commission as well as other institutions and structures in South Africa need to do a great deal more on this question, surely that would be the right thing to do, and all of us have to make our own contribution.
I would like to appeal to Mr Raju to read the press release that has recently been issued by the National Youth Commission when it launched its Youth Month 2000 which reads as follows:
This year, the youth sector - which means almost all of the youth structures, minus, I suppose the DP youth - unanimously agreed that the fight against the spread of HIV-Aids must occupy the top of the agenda in the quest for a better South Africa, hence the agreed upon theme says: `Youth fighting HIV-Aids into the African Century'.
That tells us that the National Youth Commission is fully aware of its responsibilities to deal with the question of HIV-Aids.
What I would like to reiterate here is what I said when I introduced this amendment. We have introduced this amendment with a view to trying to streamline the functions and work of the National Youth Commission. But it would seem to me that we should not stop here. We should see this as, perhaps, another beginning in terms of looking at how we can improve the relationship and the co-ordination that should take place between the National Youth Commission and whatever provincial structures are in place. I actually thought that the ANC speaker was going to mention Gauteng, but it does not have a representative on the National Youth Commission.
As we work towards this goal, we must also seek to continually improve the co-ordination that is required between the national and provincial structures, including local government structures. In the end, it is only if all of us work together that we will improve that co-ordination. If all of us could, at least on some of these issues, forget our party-political positions and acknowledge that we are facing a national problem, we could arrive at a national consensus of dealing with this national problem of youth development in a way which, to some extent, cuts across party- political positions and certainly across continually making party-political propaganda.
My hope is that this debate will, at least, cause the DP to sit and think about what they said this afternoon, to go back and look at the amendment again, and after this, to come up with a more constructive approach so that all of us can do some work. It does not help to shout and repeat statements and to fall into ritualistic, rhetoric propaganda. It does not help the youth, and it certainly will not even help the 10% privileged youth which the DP claims to represent. [Applause.]