Unemployment and the politics of the purse

I have promised not to tell. I won’t, not even mutter a word for a single day concerning it. Never to open my mouth about it, lest I be labeled with all sorts of names. To Sum up this indecision of whether to say it or not, Joseph Goebbells,Hitler’s propaganda Minister of the time once said, “if one has to sell a lie as a factual truth to the public out there, one would have to repeat it as often as possible packaging it as truth”. Unlike Goebbels, who sold lies as truth to keep his job and please Hitler, I am going to package the truth as truth and repeat it as often as possible until those who care to listen, get involved one way or the other . I have no one to please or favour. Being called a women rights activist or feminist is of no consequence because whatever names you going to label me with, I will assume them because I believe my concerns are genuine. I won’t lose anything for telling it like it is because this is a fight that I have engaged in, voluntarily on my own, soberly. So why keep quiet to please you and safeguard the interests of those who continue to oppress and suppress people’s fundamental rights? She was raised from a well up family. The father is passed away when she was young. How she ended up what she is doing only, she can tell it better. The scourge of unemployment has pushed her to do all sorts of things. Of course one should never use that as an excuse to engage in all sorts of deviant behavior but at times the most vulnerable group to suffer from the effects of unemployment is women. Her parents divorced when she was only 12years and being raised by a single parent was tough. She managed to complete her secondary education and proceeded to University where she studied Social Work. She graduated in 2010 and getting a job since then has been a challenge. She lost her mother in a car accident during the beginning of 2011.The sole bread winner of the family was snatched from her life and getting a job was still impossible. Her mother’s relatives began to fend for her. This joy of having found a new home was short-lived as the relatives coerced with a wealthy man to marry her. As someone who had studied to university level, she refused. This was not welcomed by the relatives and they chased her away. Stranded as she was, she moved in with a friend in town and the rest is history. Today she is among those who go by street corners in the avenues areas selling their bodies for sex.She is not in this trade because she enjoys it but there is no other option. The truth of the matter however is that the Ministry of Youth Empowerment and Indigenization currently being led by SaviOr Kasukuwere is aware of the rate of unemployment but there seems to be dragging of feet on taking the problem head-on. The arcane implementation of the youth funds such as the one brokered by old mutual in 2011, have further fuelled speculation that within the ministry of youth empowerment and indigenization, favouratism is rife. What does it mean to be a youth? For you to get a youth grant must you be partisan or non-partisan? Should you have a violent past that is characterized by social deviancy and delinquency? The frustration over the lack of jobs has portrayed the ministry of youth empowerment and indigenization as the “ministry of youth unemployment”. There is urgent need among the youth to start a campaign against unemployment as a wake-up call to the ministry of youth and empowerment and government at large to act swiftly towards the availing of jobs. If it is government policy that is affecting the unavailability of jobs, then it has to be reviewed. Youths from across the political divide must wake up from the fairytale experience of having to be used by politicians at the expense of their own welfare and careers. The same problems that they continue to face will still be facing them while those they would have helped to settle a political score or garner votes don’t even care about their welfare. What is the Ministry of Youth indigenization and empowerment doing to improve the scourge of unemployment? What we have witnessed so far is the noise under the pretext of indigenization and empowerment? Who is being empowered? The so-called empowerment drive has yielded nothing but panic to companies. Investors have been scared from investing in our country and this led a increase in the rate of unemployment. Honestly how can funeral palours make lots of profit from people who are dying everyday from cholera and typhoid while government watches helplessly? The ministers in government are the elite of our time. The Ministry of Finance can afford to buy top of the range cars while the issue of civil servants remain unsolved. Our Ministers are not even ashamed to lead flamboyant lives while the majority of the population struggles to make it to the next day because of hunger. At a recent workshop that I attended recently Dr Lovemore Madhuku remarked that those in the inclusive government especially the MDC comrades are under the delusion that they have brought “stability” in the economy. The use of multiple currencies has made things to look like they have changed. In reality nothing has changed, things are still even worse for the man on the street. The rate of unemployment is still high but if anything can be said about our country, those in government will go down in history as the worst ever to govern this country. Our country continues to bleed from many vices chief among them, corruption.A time will come when those who continue to abuse their offices for personal gain, but for now, they are running down the country as if they own it alone. Many university graduates continue to loiter the streets in search of employment and those in government can afford to sit and watch helplessly.