Durban - A former ANC volunteer who later established a law firm has lambasted the ruling party for allegedly turning its professionals into support staff for lesser qualified members who end up being deployed in senior state positions.
Siphesihle Xulu who studied at the University of KwaZulu-Natal and turned to volunteer at the ANC’s head office in KwaZulu-Natal when she could not find work, said she feels that the party was somehow side-lining its best brains.
Xulu was speaking in Durban on Wednesday during a round table discussion hosted by the ANC youth league from the eThekwini region and addressed by Paul Mashatile, the party’s Treasurer-General.
She was very scathing, starting by narrating how the legal sector is rotten and young lawyers are exploited as they are paid entry salaries as low as R2500 a month and expected to own cars in order to be hired.
She then turned her guns to the ANC, literally accusing the ruling party of overlooking highly educated members for positions. She said educated members end up playing supporting roles to less educated members in state roles like being their PAs (Personal Assistants).
Xulu said the current support given to young people is not good enough to allow young people to play a role in the country’s economy. She cited the issue of SETAs, saying no one ensures that grants given to employees to hire young people are effectively used.
Turning to enterprise development programmes, she said they are not working because there is no support that is given to those who have been equipped with knowledge.
Speaking to the youth present at the roundtable, Mashatile said it was the role of the youth to push for economic reforms.
He used the platform to defend his time as the MEC for finance in Gauteng where he founded the Gauteng Enterprise Propeller (GEP) which then gave rise to the “Alex Mafia” story.
He said the reason why Gauteng has more millionaires than any other province was that the programme worked as it forcefully implemented the empowerment of small businesses.
He said a similar strategy is needed as long as no money from the public coffers is stolen under the guise of empowerment.
Political Bureau