Hon House Chairperson, unfortunately the youth of South Africa, 2014, do not have a good story to tell. Twenty years into our freedom and democracy, education is just as bad as it was in 1976. They are receiving poor quality education on your watch, hon Minister Motshekga. A 30% pass rate and you expect them to become something in life, yet the people who struggled for this country come to this very podium and tell us that: "We have got a good story to tell." [Laughter.] What good story is there to tell when we have over four million young South Africans who are unemployed? They come here and tell us that we must wage a new struggle. What struggle 20 years into our freedom and democracy? No sane, thinking person must accept that young people must struggle in a free and democratic South Africa and go through what the youth of 1976 had to go through under an oppressive regime. Why is this government adopting those tendencies and oppressing the young people of this country, forcing them into permanent unemployment? Yet, they come to this podium and say: "We have a good story to tell." [Laughter.]
When we look at the issue of HIV and Aids, and the denialism that this country went through under the ANC, we see that the ramifications of that have come back to haunt us. There are child-headed households and students without parents in tertiary institutions who have to go through long queues, red tape and bureaucracy just to get access to NSFAS funding. So, what the hon Ndlozi was saying here is that you have taken young people and you have put them into a culture of dependency, because it works in favour of the ANC to have voter fodder, because if they are dependent on you, they will vote for you. What a shame! [Applause.] And then you come here and say you have a good story to tell. [Applause.]
You have done the youth of South Africa a major injustice by removing anything that says their lives are going to be improved from your social conscience. As I was preparing for this debate, I said, why should I write a speech, because young South Africans are speaking for themselves. They are saying to the government: "Shape up or ship out!" because you are failing them. You failed them in 1994; you are still failing them today. The government does not even have a youth ministry or a youth department. This very Parliament does not even have ... [Interjections.]