Siyabonga Sithole
At just 32 years of age, Member of the Member of the Mayoral Committee (MMC) and national secretary of the Inkatha Freedom Party Youth Brigade (IFPYB), Mlungisi Mabaso is one of the youngest executives in the city of Johannesburg council.
As a young person himself, Mabaso says he feels the pain of South Africa's young people who struggle to find and accesses business and work opportunities, which is why he and his department will on 29 June 2022, host a Youth in Construction in Summit as a way to encourage young people to get involved in the sector.
“My observation is that young people are not afforded opportunities that empower them. Even as government, our policies are not youth friendly as they make it difficult for them to access opportunities.
You will find that even the government department emphasises experience at the expense of young people. Where does a young person find experience when they are fresh from high school or university?
Even with internship programmes, young people are only given a 12 month or 24 month internship and once the internship is over, there is no clear programme of action that engages them beyond the internship,” Mabaso said.
“We need to find ways to change the course of young people in a meaningful way and as part of our June programme, we will be hosting this summit as a way to bring young people within opportunities in construction as construction is central to the work of this department,” he added.
Mabaso said construction is central to housing and the need to empower young people through such a summit make it possible for the city of Johannesburg to play a meaningful role in the empowerment of young people who continue to bear the brunt of unemployment statistics.
The Ulundi born activist says he never in his dreams thought he would carve a career in politics as he had set his eyes on a career as a Chartered Accountant.
However, as fate would have it, a friend of his would casually engage with him politically until he found himself leaning towards a life of a community activist and shop steward which later led to him becoming a fully-fledged politician he has since become.
“Politics just happened to me. I found myself in politics by mistake. There was this friend of mine who used to engage me politically which later grew to me being a community activist. Now that I think about it, I guess this was my political schooling. I have since become a bigger politician than he has become. It all happened organically from there as I got involved in activism fighting for the rights of the community and hostel dwellers at Dube Hostel where I stayed for a long time,” Mabaso said.
While still a resident of Dube hostel and fighting for the rights of residents there, Mabaso rose to become a PR councillor and served the community for three years before moving to the private sector where his activism as a shop steward continued. He would later join the city of Johannesburg's housing portfolio and continue his work of agitating for housing change in the many communities of Johannesburg. This is his second stint as part of the multi-party coalition government that Mabaso continues his mission of bringing dignity to the people of the city who on a daily basis struggle to find dignified shelter.
“We are currently engaged as a department and the city on a range of housing programs and projects to ensure that our people are able to access houses.
We are working on various student accommodation projects within the city and other parts of the city.
We are building student accommodation, allocating free stands and electrifying and formalizing informal settlements while also ensuring that we bring about mixed social housing into existence as we cater to a mixed market.
It is important that we as a department ensure that services are provided to our people and that our policies align with their needs and that we engage people on the ground. These and many others are some of the priorities that we have given ourselves as a department,” he said.