I'm enjoying my threads this week, so here's another one for you in the hopes that you are, too.

Here's what you need to know about cadre deployment and how it's incapacitating the South African state.

Let's look at this week's example.

The National Youth Development Agency is a governmental institution meant to help tackle youth challenges, especially unemployment and educational inequality.

It has a budget of over R500-million per year.

The NYDA employs roughly 400 people. Most of its money is spent on empowerment projects, but most of their educational activities are outsourced (to BEE compliant private companies).

It also disburses grants to young businesspeople of about R60-million a year in total.

The grants are probably the most useful thing the NYDA does. Its activities are routinely mired in controversy. Here are some examples:

In 2010, it spent R100-million on a pointless youth festival for young people from left-leaning countries around the world. It has since been dubbed the 'kissing festival', because its prime event was hundreds of youngers kurfulleling on the Union Buildings' lawns.

In 2018, fifty young people in Dambuza who were enrolled in learnerships run by the NYDA said their classes had been abruptly suspended after five months, before they could complete their qualifications.

Also in 2018, the NYDA spends hundreds of thousands on a marble tombstone for activist Solomon Mahlangu. The inscription read: “donated on behalf of the NYDA by executive chairperson Mr Sifiso Mtsweni."

But this thread is not about the NYDA's bizarre and pointless activities, so I digress.

The NYDA is governed by a board, which holds 10 meetings a year. There are 6-7 board members, who are each paid over R500 000 a year to attend these meetings. About R50 000 per meeting.

One would expect members on a board like that to all have a wealth of business, governance or industry-related expertise, right?

Well, let's see. Yesterday, Parliament recommended seven people to the President to sit on the NYDA board for the next three years...

They are:

Sifiso Mtsweni
Karabo Mohale
Thuthukile Zuma
Paballo Ponoane
Molaoli Sekake
Lukhona Mnguni
Avela Mjajubana

I've done a bit of research on each of these people. Here goes:

Sifiso Mtsweni

Karabo Mohale

Thuthukile Zuma. Daughter of Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma and Former President Jacob Zuma.

Paballo Ponoane.

Avela Mjajubana.

Molaoli Sekake.

How many trends have you noticed thus far? Have you seen anyone who hasn't been involved in or affiliated to the ANC, ANCYL, ANCWL, SASCO, SACP or the YCL?

There's only one candidate who isn't. Lukhona Mnguni

Not a single one of the candidates has any experience of owning or managing a business or company. This is surprising, considering the NYDA’s mandate of promoting youth entrepreneurship.

Four of the seven candidates have worked in ANC government jobs. The exceptions are Mnguni (experience in academia, some work for an NGO), Mohale (worked at SANLAM for three years) and Sekake (worked as a low-level researcher and spokesperson for the Young Communist League).

Only two of the candidates have worked in the private sector: Mohale (a low-level employee at SANLAM for three years) and Zuma, who has worked in a TV production company in non-management roles.

Only Mtsweni (the immediate past chairperson of the NYDA) and Mohale have any experience on boards. Mohale’s experience is extremely limited — she has only sat on the board of the Tshwane Institute for Continuing Education since mid-2019, when the Institute was formed.

Maybe you're not convinced that this isn't just sheltered employment for the politically connected? Maybe there just weren't good applicants?

Well, let's look at some of the shortlisted candidates who weren't recommended:

Cikida Gcali was not recommended. She has held associate positions at PwC and McKinsey. She has also held a senior management role at UberEats, overseeing strategy and operations in Sub-Saharan Africa. She holds a MSc in Chemical Engineering from an American University.

Unfortunately for Ms Gcali, she is not affiliated to any ANC-aligned political organisation and has no connections in government. We can only assume that this counted greatly against her appointment.

Nasiphi Moya was the only DA-affiliated shortlisted candidate. She holds a Master’s in public policy and administration from UCT. She has held senior positions in the City of Tshwane since 2016, and management positions in the DA from 2011–2016.

Even though she has not worked in the private sector, Moya's work experience far exceeds that of many of the recommended candidates.

There was one white shortlisted candidate, Janneke Pretorius, a primary school teacher with very little other experience. Her inclusion on the shortlist was strange, considering there were a number of much more suitable white applicants who weren't shortlisted.

It is possible that Pretorius was shortlisted for diversity reasons only, as her non-appointment would be very easy to justify.

Let's look at some of the applicants who weren't even considered because they didn't make it onto the shortlist:

Antoinette Davis, a Chartered Accountant from Gauteng with over 25 years of experience in banking, accountancy, financial management and the owner of a company that employs 30 people.

Davis has in-depth knowledge of corporate governance to maintain financial and managerial procedures as per industry standards. Unfortunately, she had no political affiliations or experience and thus was not shortlisted. Her picture suggests she's coloured — not helpful either.

Another CA, Zack Le Guma, with 15 years’ experience in the private sector (banking, accounting, real estate). Zack is also an entrepreneur: after attaining his MBA at the University of Cambridge, he founded Prime Growth Capital Partners.

His company has served various high-profile clients including Curro, Netcare, Titan Helicopter Group and RHI Refractories, a company listed on the London Stock Exchange. Zack is white and has no political party affiliation.

Jason Knight is a professional town planner with two Master’s degrees (Property Studies, and City and Regional Planning) from UCT. He is a coloured Capetonian. He is the Managing Director of Greenrock Group, a medium-sized town planning and urban economic development consultancy.

He has board experience in the Stellenbosch Municipal Planning Tribunal and Heritage Western Cape and has also worked for the City of Cape Town, including in senior managerial roles. Mr Knight does not advertise any political party experience of affiliation. He was not considered

Deborah Swanepoel, a white female entrepreneur from Johannesburg, has owned and directed an IT company since 2017. Her company employs dozens of people and provides web and IT infrastructure to the private sector.

Swanepoel has started a number of other businesses including Shopping Deulx, which sells airbag jackets for motorcyclists, and Relocation Station, a service that assists expats with becoming familiar with Johannesburg through an orientation program.

She worked for Mondi Paper for over ten years and held various senior managerial roles at that company. She has also received a number of formal educational qualifications in business, leadership and management. Deborah has no political affiliation. She was not shortlisted.

I included the candidate's races because the NYDA Act, the legislation that sets up this board, provides in s 9 that the board must 'reflect the demographics of the Republic'.

I'd rather have no provisions referring to race. But these appointments don't achieve this silly aim.

Takeaways:

(1) ANC-created legislation has created state institutions whose management boards earn huge salaries at taxpayers' expense, even though the institutions achieve very little.

(2) Instead of trying to make institutions achieve more by putting experienced and qualified persons on these boards, the ANC government paralyses these institutions by deploying inexperienced, underqualified and incompetent party loyalists onto them.

(3) This is just one example. Parallels exist in respect of hundreds of legislation-created Boards and Associations in all areas of society, from landscape profession regulating boards to broadcasting authorities.

And it's always the same. ANC before public service. Always.