{"id":15992,"date":"2026-01-10T22:02:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-10T22:02:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/15992\/"},"modified":"2026-01-10T22:02:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-10T22:02:10","slug":"mantashe-says-he-was-misquoted-following-backlash-over-lazy-youth-remarks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/15992\/","title":{"rendered":"Mantashe says he was misquoted following backlash over &#8216;lazy youth&#8217; remarks"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>After facing backlash over comments suggesting that unemployed young people are lazy to apply for jobs, African National Congress (ANC) national chairperson Gwede Mantashe said he was misquoted.<\/p>\n<p>Mantashe came under fire following a television interview in which he said youth unemployment is partly caused by laziness.<\/p>\n<p>ALSO READ:\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ewn.co.za\/2026\/01\/09\/anc-wants-mantashe-to-clarify-remarks-that-sa-youth-are-lazy\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">ANC wants Mantashe to clarify comments that SA youth are lazy<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ewn.co.za\/2026\/01\/09\/ramaphosa-says-anc-anniversary-an-opportunity-to-provide-solutions-to-ongoing-problems\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Ramaphosa says ANC anniversary an opportunity to provide solutions to ongoing problems<\/a><\/p>\n<p>ANC Secretary General Fikile Mbalula said he has spoken to Mantashe about the comments, after which Mantashe maintained that his remarks were misquoted.<\/p>\n<p>Mbalula has also called on Mantashe to publicly clarify his statements.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;That matter is not a joking matter. It\u2019s a serious matter and must be clarified properly. If comrade Gwede was not properly quoted, he must get to the media in the coming week and clarify himself,&#8221; said Mbalula.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After facing backlash over comments suggesting that unemployed young people are lazy to apply for jobs, African National&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15993,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[397,398,403,400,399,401,96,402,406,405,404,131],"class_list":{"0":"post-15992","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-south-africa","8":"tag-ewn","9":"tag-ewn-news","10":"tag-ewn-south-africa","11":"tag-eye-witness-news","12":"tag-eyewitness-news","13":"tag-latest-news","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-news-today","16":"tag-prime-media-plus","17":"tag-primedia-plus","18":"tag-primedia","19":"tag-south-africa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15992","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15992"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15992\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15993"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15992"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15992"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}