A section of youths from Gulu district want politicians to stop politicizing the issue of unemployment and instead come up with policies to avert their plight.
The youth made the remarks yesterday while petitioning Parliament over the increasing unemployment in the country.
Presenting their petition to Speaker Rebecca Kadaga, Eric Opondo, General Secretary Uganda Youth Federation for Good Governance called on the President to reduce on the number of cabinet members and MPs because a lot of money is spent on paying these groups exorbitant salaries which money can be used to create employment for the youth.
“The Parliament should recognize that Youth unemployment is a national matter that has been politicized and taken advantage of by politicians. It is against this background that the problem is a cancer that deserves an immediate treatment,” Opondo said.
The youths who included Joe Okello- Vice General Secretary, Stella Aloyo- Vice Chairperson, Francis Akoo-Finance Secretary, Maurine Anyoda-Female Representative blamed the rampant unemployment on bad governance and representation of unpatriotic charismatic leadership, poor planning and unfavourable policies which lack transparent and unaccountable institutions.
The youth made a number of prayers highlighting, “Government should revamp cooperative unions which will help improve bargaining of market price. We request that this petition maybe laud before Parliament for further discussions.”
Kadaga however rejected argument that youth representatives in Parliament have absconded their duties when it comes to youth matters saying, “Yes there are a few errant MPs but overall issues of youths have been raised on the floor of parliament.”
The Speaker also revealed that youth leaders in Parliament are seeking to amend the Uganda Development Bank Act to allow youths access funds without having to go through hurdles.
Statistics from Uganda Bureau of Statistics show that the unemployment rate in Uganda stands at 6.5% and about 75.4% of the youth are unemployed.
Annually about 700,000 youth join the job market but only 90,000 get the jobs this represents only 12.8% of the youth while 87.2% don’t get any job.
