Youth unemployment, a time bomb

Jun 14, 2013

More than two thirds of Uganda’s population is below the age of 24, and there is no doubt this is affecting the dynamics of both the socio-economic and political dimension of our country.

By Allan Kiwala Sekadde

Uganda is at crossroads and one needs to understand this new form of militancy within our communities. More than two thirds of Uganda’s population is below the age of 24, and there is no doubt this is affecting the dynamics of both the socio-economic and political dimension of our country.

These are worrying statistics as the Government needs to act and act fast in order to maintain the relative social and economic harmony. This group of the population is high voltage and it is capable of creating its own weather, therefore it should not be ignored – there concerns should be addressed. 

There is more to the rampant ‘’Butayimbas’’ and spontaneous strikes by locals who are  demanding for better service delivery such as, better workmanship on the roads, clean water, medication in healthcare centres and so on and so forth. At the bottom of this all, is youth unemployment and if Government does not address this issue, then all the gains that have been made in the last 30 years could be reserve in a second.

Youth unemployment among the literate is 80% and this figure further goes up amongst the semi–literate and illiterate. This is a receipt for disaster as these youth could easily be manipulated by opportunists and derails the country back to the dark ages.

In Uganda, it is not unusual to see men or women about the age of 35 still living with their parents or grandparents, with their hopes and aspirations shattered. This state of desperation is what has led to an increment in criminality, violence, prostitution, fraud at all levels of our society. (Obufere)

From the early 1980s, there has been this notion that governments should not directly participate in setting up and managing state industries and factories but I greatly differ. This thinking has for long been pushed by the World Bank, the IMF and other western powers but the thinking is fraud.

For more than two centuries, west democracies, as they wish to be called, have had state owned enterprises and this helped to build capacity within their respective nations, today’s modern railway line, bridges, dams, giant infrastructures in the western democracies owe their existence to the capacity that was built by the state run enterprises.

It was not unheard of, to hear names of companies like British rails, British Telecom among others, this went a long way in solving the problems of unemployment in the west and when the capacity had been created, they went on to liberalise in the early 1980s.

Today, one of the biggest technology giants in the world is Huawei, a state owned Chinese company, and Chinese state owned banks are spearheading infrastructure developments across Africa.

So, if the Government of Uganda is going to solve the problem of youth unemployment and its related vices, it should build industries and factories. It should not wait for the investors either but start off investing itself. Choosing to wait for investors would be mortgaging off Uganda to the west and now the Far East.

The writer is an accountant, radio commentator, social critic and educationist

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