EFF gives President Ramaphosa box of CVs to highlight youth unemployment

During the State of the Nation Address (SONA) debate on Wednesday, Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) MP Sihle Lonzi delivered a fiery and emotional speech, which was a reaction against government's insinuation that the youth are lazy and not doing enough to find work.

"The most disheartening thing is the attitude that this government has against a crisis of joblessness amongst young people... the policy position of this government is that the problem is not that there are no jobs – the problem is that the youth are not putting in enough effort to go and look for jobs.

"Then we made a commitment to say, because you don't take this struggle of youth unemployment seriously, we are going to rally the youth of South Africa to deliver CVs to the Union Buildings, to Parliament, to government buildings..."

Lonzi also says the Youth Employment Service (YES) programme, which governemnt hails as a success, is a "scam".

"It brings young people in these jobs that don't have security. They come in, they do these two months, three months internships – they place them as teachers' assistants... a lot of them have not even been paid since last year.

"There's no plan or solution to resolve the structural problem of unemployment... you have to grow the economy, you have to industrialise – we need factories back.

"The people want jobs... the presidency should hang its head in shame for trying to celebrate the YES programme."

To listen to Sihle Lonzi in conversation with CapeTalk and 702’s Mandy Wiener, use the audio player below: