Chairperson, I would also like to acknowledge the Deputy President of the ANC Youth League in the gallery. I understand he is such a tough lobbyist that some hon members have requested that he get a hat as a gift from the House!
I want also to thank all the hon members who participated in the discussion. I also would like to recommend a hat for Mr Swathe and to suggest to the hon Madikiza that he reads the Bill again because I don't think it says the things that he was saying here. He probably read the wrong Bill. I would suggest to my former president there, Lulu Johnson, that he gives him the correct copy.
The National Youth Development Agency will combine rather than split the efforts of the previous structures. The weaknesses in the National Youth Commission and the Umsobomvu Youth Fund did not exist because of the deliberate weaknesses in these organisations. It was because of the mandate that these organisations had.
The merger will result in a better-resourced and better-capacitated agency that will benefit from the collective experience of the two structures, which were accumulated over a period of about 10 years, and from leveraging the capacities of the two organisations towards a single goal.
Again the agency must not be regarded as a panacea to the problems of the youth. The labour market must still create jobs. Schools must still teach and offer good quality education. Universities must still develop skills and produce rounded, competent citizens. The agency will have to play its part in lobbying for youth development and in establishing some programmes and implementing those that they can afford within the limitations of the resources that they have.
In reality, the agency will not have all the resources it needs to be able to respond at once to the complex problems that young people in our country have. That would mean that all government departments, including the private sector, will have to play their part and not shirk their responsibilities simply because a national youth development agency already exists.
This is a new era which we are going to enter in the field of youth development. It was instructive that this agency was the idea of young people themselves, and we should commend the youth for their vigilance and for being alert and being able to voice the ideas and concerns they have about weaknesses in the structures and programmes that we have established. Thank you very much, and Merry Christmas to all. [Applause.]
Debate concluded.
Bill read a second time.