By Antonio Mwanza
PRESIDENT LUNGU AND THE 500, 000 JOBS
In 2015, President Edgar Lungu launched an ambitious National Youth Policy and Action Plan on Youth Empowerment and Employment targeting the creation of more than 500,000 jobs for the youth through the implementation of the national apprenticeship and internship schemes.
5 years down the line, not only has the President achieved his goal but he has in fact surpassed his target.
Since we only deal with FACTS and not MANYENGWE, let me give you the breakdowns:
1. SYNOPSIS
a) JOB CREATION: The job of the Government is not necessarily to create jobs but more so to create an enabling environment for the private sector to thrive.
b) GOVERNMENT JOBS: The world over government jobs are never enough. Why? Because Government jobs are LIMITED to the public sector or/and the civil service. That’s all.
c) REASON: The more the Government employees the more burden it puts on the treasury, creating an economic imbalance. For instance, currently Zambia is spending over 50% of its budget on salaries and emoluments leaving little money for us to invest in other socio-economic sectors to spur growth and raise people’s standards of living.
So to ensure sustainable growth and job creation, the key is to have a thriving private sector. Chapwa!
2. WHERE DO WE STAND:
According to the Labour Survey of 2019, the PF Government has created hundreds of thousands of jobs, both permanent and temporal ones.
Currently the job figures are as follows:
¡) We have over 1.1 million Zambians in formal employment
¡¡) Over 1.2 million Zambians in the informal sector
¡¡¡) And over 900,000 employed in the domestic sector.
Curremtly Government is running over six major youth empowerment initiatives.
These programmes are: Youth Development fund, Women empowerment fund under Development Bank of Zambia, Skills and entrepreneurship project through the creation of industrial parks under African development Bank, The $29million Zambia aquaculture enterprise development project under African development fund, Cassava Value Chain Programme under the Citizen Economic Empowerment Commission (CEEC), Aquaculture Value Chain Initiative under CEEC.
Just last month Government dished out:
¡) 6 million dollars to youths for aqua- culture
¡¡) K470 million for multi sectoral youth empowerment projects
¡¡¡) K30 million for artists.
Over 3800 small and medium scale businesses have benefited through CEEC.
So when it comes to the 500,000 jobs, President Edgar Lungu has delivered on his promise.
In fact he has gone beyond.
Statistics from the CEEC, Zambia Development Agency, Central Statistics Office as well as the Ministry are AVAILABLE for all to see.
Mwabombeni Ba Kateka.
The Author, Antonio Mourinho Mwanza, is PF Deputy Media Director.