Youths desperately needed job opportunities and an enabling environment to start businesses, said the Youth Forum programmes officer, Ashton Bumhira. “If Zim Asset was implemented with the right spirit, it would steer the country out of its current economic crisis and save the remains of wasted youths’ lives from perishing,” he said.
While government promised Zim Asset would create two million jobs within its current term of office, youths were dismayed to observe companies were shutting down at an unprecedented rate.
Bumhira put the unemployment rate at above 75 percent and dismissed the government census figure of 11 percent as day-dreaming. He said the government “wrongfully considered people earning a living through vending along streets as employed”.
Although Zim Asset as a document was juicy and pregnant with promises, the nation had no confidence in Zanu (PF)’s ability to implement it, he said.
There was a wide rift between what Zim Asset stood for and the capability of the current government to make it bear fruit. Among its objectives was provision of shelter to the people but “on the ground Zanu (PF) was destroying people’s houses without alternative shelter.”
“The patronage system is so deep seated in Zanu (PF) that its government cannot implement a programme of Zim Asset’s magnitude. Everybody would remember the spirited talk about corruption when the Zanu (PF) government started business last year. But disturbingly the talk died down without any action taken against the suspects,” Bumhira said. He also noted that the haphazard way in which the indigenisation policy was being implemented needed revisiting.
He pointed out that Zimbabwe’s means of production were in the hands of a few who were not youths. The country lacked poverty reduction mechanisms and educational support systems, such as student cadetships, were in limbo.
The Forum is taking Zim Asset to the people through public discussions, as it believes they should fully understand the document and be able to separate cheap political rhetoric from serious government business ahead of 2018 elections.
Post published in: News