Statements made by Human Settlements Minister Lindiwe Sisulu that people younger than 40 will not get a free house has angered and shock the National Freedom Party Youth Movement (NFPYM).
“Anybody below the age of 40 will need to understand that they are not our priority unless they are special needs or are heads of child-headed households,” Sisulu said in Durban.
“Our intention in giving free houses was to right the wrongs of the past and make sure that we can give our people dignity. And that group of people is not the people below the age of 40,” she reportedly said on the sidelines of the 6th Planning Africa Conference.
Sisulu reportedly said the government had received a lot complaints for not providing free housing to the youth, but that the message to young people needed to be clear – that they would not receive free housing.
“I don’t know of a country that gives free houses to young people. Free housing in a few years will be something of the past. You [the young people] have lost nothing [to apartheid].”
She said government free housing projects were aimed at helping those who had suffered under apartheid.
“To us this is shocking. It’s this type of arrogance that makes young people less interested in voting. It’s a shame that Minister Sisulu has forgotten that the majority of the people she is talking about have lost their parents during the apartheid era, said NFPYM general secretary Maria Busi Tshabalala.
Tshabalala said the minister spoke about the youth not receiving houses while she was around as if the money for housing came from her own pocket as opposed the fact that it was taxpayers’ money
.
“It’s shocking and disturbing that few months after the general elections, she is taking such a stance because it’s us as young people who voted in numbers,” said Tshabalala.
“Is the ANC saying to hell with young people, now that they put in power for the next five years? We, as the NFPYM we are not surprised that the Minister speaks like this because she knows nothing about poverty or going to school bare-footed.”
The youth fraction of the NFP said the ANC’s true colours are now coming out and that it is clear that the ruling part does not care about the youth.
The political party has challenged the minister to a public debate on the issue.
- citizen
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