Africa-Press – Lesotho. The youth under #Bachashutdown Movement demand that the Minister of Gender, Youth, Sports and Recreation Hon Likeleli Tampane evacuates office because she has among other things failed to deliver her promises to the
youth. This they revealed at a press conference yesterday. #Bachashutdown Movement Representative Thuso Leina indicated that they had a meeting with the Honorable
Minister on the 1st July 2021 in which Hon Tampane promised that in an effort to curb the high unemployment rate among the youth, the Ministry will hire 50 youths before the end of August 2021 for Region 5 games.
Leina said Hon Tampane also promised to provide them with a financial report showcasing that the Ministry is working on a 0% budget before the end of the week of their meeting
in July. He said Hon Minister also promised to give them a list of programs meant to curtail youth unemployment rate. “It is with great sorrow that we announce that the Hon Minister hasn’t delivered even a single promise
from the promises she made,” Leina declared. He further stated that instead, they received a notice from the ministry’s Principal Secretary Dr ‘Mamoeketsi Ntho which noted that the ministry will no more hire the 50 youth
as was promised but will deploy the civil servants from the ministry. Through their research, Leina said they have discovered that the ministry’s program called National
Volunteer Corp (NVC) which is meant to curb youth unemployment only takes 108 people per year among 11 000 applications, which is 1% of the youth registered
for that program. Leina also declared that as #Bachashutdown Movement they are not affiliated with any political party and are not influenced by any. He said they are solely working towards the
betterment of the country’s development. He further affirmed that they have written a letter to the Prime Minister, asking him to oust the Minister, through the power bestowed upon him by the National Constitution.
On the other hand, #Bachashutdown Movement Representative Tumelo Moteuli said their journey started on November 6th 2020 when they marched to Parliament to hand a petition which detailed issues
around youth unemployment, National Manpower Development Secretariat reforms, Gender-based violence bill and many others. Moteuli held that as the movement, they are very worried about the recent escalating gender-based violence
cases in the country and when they had consulted the Parliamentary Council, it indicated that it was facilitating consultations. Meanwhile Hon Tampane told
Informative Newspaper that the Ministry will indeed employ over 100 youth in December for the anticipated Region 5 games. On the issue of providing the
youth with the financial report that indicates that her ministry if working on a 0% budget, Tampane said she does not work with financial reports but the
Principal Secretary (PS) does, therefore the youth should demand such documents from the PS’s office. The Lesotho National Youth Policy 2017-2030 states that Lesotho like any other country is faced with the
problem of high youth unemployment. This is estimated at 35.8% and is higher among females (MGYSR, 2014). Though the Commonwealth Youth Development Index
(YDI) suggests relatively good performance (0.683) with Lesotho ranked at 22nd
out of 54 Commonwealth countries, unemployment among youth is still higher than the national average of 25% and can be a potential source of social and
political unrest. Self-employed youth in Lesotho only constitute 3% of the labour force. The private sector forms 76.9% while government employs 16.2% respectively (UNDP Lesotho, 2012).
High youth unemployment is attributed to slow economic growth that is projected to be at 2.6% (World Bank, 2016). This limits the country’s ability to generate significant new jobs.
For More News And Analysis About Lesotho Follow Africa-Press
