Africa-Press – Lesotho. The Youth Interim Ministerial Task (YIMT) team has announced that they will soon hold a job summit for youth in an effort to map youth’s demands to what the jobs market
has to offer and invite stakeholders to listen to their recommendations. This will be a two days virtual summit, scheduled for November 17th to 19th. According to YIMT
Coordinator Phetho Matla, the summit will open a platform for discussion regarding issues of unemployment between youth and the government, private sector both local and international, Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and
development partners to develop plans on how to tackle unemployment. Matla explained that this comes after struggling to have representation in the government since the last
National Youth Council, adding that they have suffered misrepresentation in various disciplines of youth development. “We have been engaged in various
stakeholders’ forums deliberating on how to modify their efforts to include the youth in devising solutions for their problems. We would like to give a token
of appreciation to those who made it possible for us to sample the in-district consultations with the youth on how the youth unemployment is affecting them
especially in the midst of COVID-19, and how they would like to be assisted,” he said. “The majority of the youth have no formal tertiary education, those that do are often unemployed or
underemployed. Our professionals are often mismatched to their qualifications. The net effect is that they are tired of accompanying the politically affiliated, the connected and those that pay bribes to work since nepotism and
corruption are the order of the day. The public sector, private sector and NGO projects are all corruption infested and Chiefs and Councilors representatives
are all engaged in some form of corrupt employment systems,” he highlighted. Matla commended the Minister of Gender, Youth, Sports and Recreation for hearing their cry and
establishing the conduit between the youth and the government and the task team. He insisted that due to lack of relevant skills in their dream jobs, youth would very much appreciate
training and apprenticeship programs in their projects. He said they would take any decent job in the meantime while pursuing their dream jobs. He also pointed
that together, through putting the right resources in place, the stakeholders will accomplish this assignment successfully. Matla noted that all the plans are expected to be executed in February next year, thus their roadmap will be launched in January 2022.
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