Youth alliance firm in its call for Mboweni to resign: 'ANC must do what we were promised'

2nd June 2021 By: News24Wire

Youth alliance firm in its call for Mboweni to resign: 'ANC must do what we were promised'

Finance Minister Tito Mboweni

The Progressive Youth Alliance (PYA) has maintained its call for the removal of Finance Minister Tito Mboweni.

The PYA includes the South African Students Congress Organisation, the African National Congress Youth League, the Young Communist League and the Congress of South African Students.

On Tuesday, the PYA marched to the National Treasury offices in Tshwane to hand over a memorandum.

In the seven-page memorandum, the youth structure said the demands of young people were not being taken seriously by the government, especially with regard to problems like unemployment and historical school fees debt.

The PYA, which has been vocal for the past 48 hours, said the move was part of its campaign launch for youth month 2021 - and that the first objective was to give Mboweni a month to vacate his office.

"Mr Mboweni should be removed from the people's National Treasury as his decisions, together with his class associates, do not serve the best interests of our people.

"We further recommend that Mr Mboweni should consider critical training to respect the South African population, which will assist him to understand that his views are not necessarily more important than that of the South African population," the memorandum read.

The youth alliance is also demanding free quality education as well as de-commodified and de-colonised education.

The PYA said they'd continue with the call for students to be allowed to receive free education in the country.

"We demand free quality education for the working class, the oppressed and the poor, and the immediate reversal of the onslaught that has been unleashed by Tito Mboweni and his class associates, that has resulted in the cutting of spending on education, training and skills development."

However, despite some of the burning issues that have been raised by the PYA, speaking to Newzroom Afrika, it distanced itself from the notion that the move to march to National Treasury was the "ANC marching against the ANC".

Instead, the group said it was tired of the ANC making empty promises without any results."We have an objective and understanding that we need to implement the National Democratic Revolution in making sure that we deal with gender inequality, in making sure we deal with racism, which is why we are saying to the listening government of the ANC, we are here, as young people of the ANC.

"We are here to confront the leaders of the ANC to say we are agreed that you are going to liberate us. We are saying the ANC must do what we were promised," said the SA Students Congress Organisation president, Bamanye Matiwane.

Matiwane said they would make sure their grievances don't fall on deaf ears when demanding that Mboweni vacates his office.

The structure also threatened to write to President Cyril Ramaphosa regarding the matter, if Mboweni didn't resign in the given 30-day notice.

Mboweni referred comments to his spokesperson, who has not yet responded to a request for comment.