ANC Youth League president Collen Malatji says linking joblessness to laziness shows a disconnect from the realities faced by South Africans. ANC Youth League presidentCollen Malatjihas hit back and criticised remarks byANC national chairperson Gwede Mantashelinking youth unemployment to a lack of effort in applying for jobs, saying such views reflected a troubling disconnect from the daily realities faced by South Africans. “With the high level of unemployment in South Africa, you find leaders of the ANC saying that people are unemployed because they are too lazy to apply for jobs.
”Those are people who are detached from the reality of the people of South Africa,” said Malatji. This comes after Mantashe sparked controversy during an interview with the SABC, where he criticised what he described as a passive relationship between government and society. He suggested that many South Africans expected the state to deliver everything for them.
“We have created a situation where people sit back, you sit in the sun, and expect the state to deliver,” Mantashe said, arguing that this was a mistake in governance. Using a fishing metaphor, Mantashe said: “The ANC has given you a fishing rod, must it now catch fish for you?” He argued that the country needed to move from a passive society to an active one where citizens took responsibility for their own success. Referring to a conversation with a young woman who complained about joblessness despite being educated, Mantashe repeated that the ANC had already provided the “fishing rod”. He also compared current expectations with his own experience, saying that despite being over 70 years old, the government had never looked for a job for him.
