Nothing wrong with ANCYL president Malatji calling Nxesi 'unemployment minister': Mbalula

ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula has defended youth league president Collen Malatji after Malatji took a dig at employment and labour minister Thulas Nxesi. 

Malatji publicly criticised Nxesi in his closing address during the second leg of the ANC Youth League's 26th national congress in the Free State.

He said Nxesi appeared to be the “minister of unemployment” and should be removed. 

“I don’t know when we are removing him but it’s an urgent matter,” Malatji said.

Speaking at the ANC 2019 election manifesto review, Mbalula said there was nothing wrong with the youth league publicly calling out issues in the ANC. 

He said the youth league was a “necessary irritation” and free to engage with the government. 

“Sometimes we may not see things young people see. They are responsible to provide ideas, apart from just being a necessary irritation. Ideas are not insults, it is about arguing in the revolution to say: 'Comrades, you are selling out the revolution for these reasons'.

“We do not expect our youth to always be on the right path, but we have to share with them our experiences of the past.”

Mbalula said the youth should not be kept quiet but there was no need to attack party members personally. 

“When I said [public enterprises minister] Pravin [Gordhan] must move, I didn’t say personal things about him. I was attacking the content of government infrastructure on the issue of logistics and freight and implementing the policy of the ANC from moving goods from road to rail.

“We do not believe the youth league is incorrect and it is why we said it is regrettable to call a comrade a yellow communist and isolate him from the pack and attack him.

“The youth league is led by the ANC, it does not invent its own policy. If they go into meetings and discuss that for us to move faster we need this intervention in terms of the policy, they must sell it to the ANC.”

In a statement, the ANC noted Malatji's comments, saying it does not encourage insults towards party members. 

“The youth league represents a strong body of opinion within our organisation and society towards the fulfilment of its twin tasks — advancing the ideals of a democratic society and the development of young people,” it said. 

“Whilst the ANC encourages the youth league to robustly and outspokenly pursue the interests of young people, we urge this should be done without denigrating personalities.”

It said critical thought should be premised on substantive analysis and solution-based thinking. “As such, the ANC takes exception to the utterances by the youth league on Thulas Nxesi.”