Chairperson, hon members, the National Youth Development Agency Bill seeks to create an apparently new structure to deal with the important question of youth and how their development is catered for within the greater context of government policy and administration.
Important issues that require attention include how national policies and decisions reflect the needs and inspirations of the youth. It is especially important that we create a democratic society that has legitimacy among the new generation if we expect them to carry forward the historic project of consolidating the freedom we attained in 1994.
Our concern lies not so much in the objectives of the Bill, but we are concerned that it merely seems to duplicate an existing structure that exists within the Presidency, and to collapse the Umsobomvu Youth Fund into this new structure.
It must be noted that both the commission and the fund have poor delivery track records and dubious fiscal management histories. However, these problems will not disappear with the establishment of this new structure. This is because these structures are transferred as they are into the new agency. The agency will inherit all the problems and weaknesses ...
The UDM supports the Bill. [Time expired.]