{"id":23249,"date":"2026-01-14T16:31:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-14T16:31:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/23249\/"},"modified":"2026-01-14T16:31:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-14T16:31:11","slug":"mantashe-clarifies-unemployment-remarks-says-he-wanted-to-encourage-activism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/23249\/","title":{"rendered":"Mantashe clarifies unemployment remarks, says he wanted to encourage activism"},"content":{"rendered":"

ANC national chairperson and mineral and petroleum resources minister Gwede Mantashe has sought to clarify his comments about youth unemployment<\/a> that have stirred up quite a controversy last week. <\/p>\n

Speaking at Nyanyadu Primary School in Dundee, KwaZulu-Natal, on Wednesday, Mantashe insisted he was misquoted as he did not call young people \u201clazy\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am fighting young people here. They\u2019ve accused me of saying they are lazy and I deny that. That\u2019s not what I said. I didn\u2019t use the term lazy. You can go back to my interview, you will not find \u2018lazy\u2019. I am making the point that we will only defeat unemployment if we are activists. If we are sleeping, we will not defeat it. We must be activists,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

Mantashe faced a serious backlash last week, after controversial remarks he made alleging that the youth are unemployed because they are lazy and do not submit CVs to search for employment. He suggested that unemployed South Africans are overly dependent on the government to provide jobs rather than actively seeking employment. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe ANC has given you a fishing rod. Must it now catch fish for you?\u201d Mantashe asked. <\/p>\n

On Wednesday Mantashe said his intention was to encourage citizens to be more proactive in their pursuit of employment. <\/p>\n

I\u2019m told I said people are lazy. No, I said get up and look for jobs … It is up to you to make follow-ups and check whether you appear on lists, whether you have been shortlisted and whether you come to interviews prepared. That\u2019s all I am saying<\/p>\n

\u2014 \u00a0Gwede Mantashe, ANC national chair<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople from our country must have work. They must come out of their homes and look for the jobs. The jobs won\u2019t be delivered to their doorsteps. I\u2019m told I said people are lazy. No, I said get up and look for jobs. If you have applied, do a follow-up, ask about your reference number as an applicant. It is up to you to make those follow-ups and check whether you appear on lists, whether you have been shortlisted and whether you come to interviews prepared. That\u2019s all I am saying.\u201d <\/p>\n

He even revealed that he had engaged with the minister of labour about strategic interventions employed by other countries that could assist to reduce high levels of unemployment.<\/p>\n

\u201cI asked the labour minister whether our neighbouring countries have identified particular jobs to be reserved for citizens, and why we can\u2019t do that here. You go to a garage, the petrol attendant assisting you is a foreign national. Something is wrong. You go to a farm, you find a foreign national working there. You go to a restaurant, the person serving you is a foreign national. You go to the mines … basic work requiring basic skills is done by a foreign national. That is not xenophobic; it\u2019s about patrotism. You love your country.\u201d <\/p>\n

So contentious were Mantashe\u2019s comments that they invited a threats from ANC Youth League (ANCYL)\u2019s president Collen Malatji<\/a> to picket at the party\u2019s January 8th celebration alongside unemployed youth with CVs in hand. <\/p>\n

Malatji clapped back, saying the youth cannot be told by someone \u201cwho has never written or submitted a CV\u201d in their life. <\/p>\n

\u201cWith the high level of unemployment in South Africa, you find leaders if the ANC saying people are unemployed because they are lazy to apply for jobs. Those are people who are detached from the reality of the people of South Africa,\u201d Malatji said on Thursday last week.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t want your views, we don\u2019t want your slogans. We want you to speak resolutions in the ANC and not what you think is right. We don\u2019t care what you think. We care about the resolutions of the ANC,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula<\/a> had to intervene in the public spat, reading the riot act to Mantashe and instructing him to explain his controversial remarks about youth unemployment or face being sanctioned by the organisation. <\/p>\n

Addressing ANC youth league members at a Peter Mokaba memorial lecture in the North West ahead of the party\u2019s January 8 rally, Mbalula said Mantashe should explain what he meant.<\/p>\n

\u201cI spoke to the national chair. He says he was misquoted. If he was misquoted, he must clarify himself about that misquotation … What the media is saying the national chair has said about the youth being lazy and that people must go and find jobs for themselves \u2014 that matter must be clarified. If it is not clarified, it will remain that the national chair has said [it]. This is not a joking matter; it is serious matter. It must be clarified properly,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf he does not clarify himself, I will issue a statement on behalf of the ANC to reprimand him. If those are his views, they cannot be the views of the national chair of the ANC.\u201d<\/p>\n

TimesLIVE<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ANC national chairperson and mineral and petroleum resources minister Gwede Mantashe has sought to clarify his comments about…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5698,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[13484,4332,10561,14333,14337,4331,2102,14332,14335,14336,131,5426,14334],"class_list":{"0":"post-23249","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-south-africa","8":"tag-activism","9":"tag-anc","10":"tag-anc-youth-league","11":"tag-ancyl","12":"tag-dundee","13":"tag-gwede-mantashe","14":"tag-kzn","15":"tag-mantashe","16":"tag-nyanyadu","17":"tag-nyanyadu-primary-school","18":"tag-south-africa","19":"tag-unemployment","20":"tag-youth-league"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23249","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=23249"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23249\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5698"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}