Scores of unemployed young people from Soweto took their fight against unemployment to the office of the new mayor, Dada Morero.
Their fight to be prioritised for jobs comes just days after the mayor called for the city to consider employing “legally and properly documented foreigners” as Johannesburg Metro Police Department (JMPD) officers.
This proposal from the mayor sparked fury among South Africans, mostly unemployed youth who felt left out by the government amid the unemployment crisis in the country.
A young woman, Vanity Moyo, who was part of the march on Wednesday, told The Star that she has been unemployed for two years and survives only on the R350 social distress grant which she said was not enough for her two children.
“It has been two years being unemployed and as a 28-year-old mother of two children, my only income is the R350 social grant which is not enough to take care of my children and family. I am here with the hope that our cries for jobs will be heard by the mayor. I had to be here to contribute to this fight against unemployment rate which is bad for many of us,” she said.
Another unemployed South African, Luyolo Dlamini, said he has been searching for a job for three years ever since moving from uMzimkhulu, KwaZulu-Natal, to Pimville, Soweto.
“I have a security licence including a firearm licence, but whenever we enquire about jobs, we are told that we must pay R3 000 bribe in order to secure a job. I do not have this money and desperately want to feed my family,” he said.
According to community leader, Thabang Moloi, who was in the company of youth leader, Kim Moloi, at least 500 other young people were not able to make the trip to Braamfontein due to transport challenges.
“There are more than 500 young people who could not be here today with us. Young people are suffering while our government wants to hire foreigners at the expense of our youth. We have given the mayor 14 days to respond to our cries, because our children are suffering. They are hungry,” he told The Star.
Following the delivery of more than 1 000 CV’s to the mayor, who was not available to accept the memo, his adviser, Tsumbo Nephawe, promised to respond to the pleas of the community within the stipulated 14 days.
“We accept that these are genuine concerns that the community has brought to the mayor. It is unfortunate that the mayor is not available to personally accept these CV’s and memorandum, because by the time the mayor heard about this march, his schedule was already full,” he said.
“When we heard the mayor say he wants to outsource and employ foreigners as JMPD officers, we thought to ourselves, we must come and introduce ourselves to him. This was to remind him that we are still unemployed and are in need of job opportunities,” said youth leader Moloi.
While the march was taking place, the mayor was preparing for an inner city restoration programme at Park Station.
The Star