Mashaba said almost 900‚000 people in the City of Johannesburg were unemployed.
“In other words‚ 1 in 3 people residing in the City of Johannesburg are denied the means to earn a living and struggle on a daily basis to take care of themselves and their families.
“This is a matter that will require us to put our party political affiliations aside‚ forget our political ideologies and combine our heads to find solutions to the ticking time-bomb that is youth unemployment.
“We must agree that our public education system is broken and must be rebuilt in order to give our children a glimmer of hope that they can become competitive members of the global community. We must dedicate the lion’s share of our national resources towards fixing our schools and training our teachers to better groom our children into tomorrow’s leaders.”
Endorsing free‚ quality education‚ he said: “What is needed is the political will to do away with nice-to-have projects and to push these resources towards building our children’s future.”
Mashaba also revealed that‚ in addition to the freedom of the city and a proposal to name the council chambers after her‚ Madikizela-Mandela’s family has requested that the city host the Winnie Madikizela-Mandela Children’s Parliament‚ at least once a year‚ in its Chambers.