Africa-Press – Namibia.
National Youth Service (NYS) has denounced allegations of tribalism and favouritism, with the shortlisting of intakes for its training programme.
Two regional and local government leaders expressed deep dissatisfaction with the 16th NYS intake list.
The list making rounds on social media, has also been slammed by civil society and youth. The members accused the youth organisation of shortlisting only a certain part of the young population.
Kamanjab Village Council chairperson, Elsie Goagoses said only 5% of her constituency’s youth appear on the list.
“The rest of the 95%, I don’t know where they got them from,” she said.
The service allegedly placed different names from different constituencies, under the Kamanjab constituency, excluding youth, who are in dire need of the opportunity, she claimed.
This has reportedly become a trend.
“We have a high number of youths in Kamanjab, and about 95% of them are unemployed. We don’t have any jobs here in Kamanjab. The hope we have is for NYS to help us cut the unemployment rate. But looking at the intake that comes out, our hopes are broken by NYS. Because we see the government is not meeting our youth halfway,” she said.
She said, before, the service would recruit youth through the constituency offices, but not anymore.
A letter would be attached by the councillors verifying that their youth are part of the intake and that the names are not of non-residents.
“But now I don’t know how they are doing it. And I think they know that most of our youth do not go through the list when it comes out. We are people who used to work hand in hand with the youth, and we were very much dedicated to them,” she stated.
Katutura East constituency councillor in Khomas, Richard !Gaoseb said he was approached by the disgruntled youth on Monday, who raised the matter with him.
“The person applies, but the results are not coming back. And at the end of the day, you see somebody who has not applied in your constituency, appearing. What does it tell you?” he asked.
NYS commissioner Felix Musukubili said they recruit people per constituency in equal representation.
“We use the governors’ offices and the constituency councillors’ offices. So we do not accept the allegations.”
“How would I know who is who? Even the mayor; how does she know every citizen in that constituency? If a person’s application indicates they applied from Kamanjab, how do we, as the NYS, it’s not from Kamanjab? We don’t have control over that. We don’t know everybody from Kamanjab. We are a national service. We take people from every constituency, and the youth are given enough time to apply – over a month,” he said.
Community activist Shaun Gariseb also criticised the institution, stating that young Namibians in different constituencies are subjected to strategic injustice by the NYS.
The intake is a potential pathway for young Namibians to join the NDF and the Namibian Police.
“This provision seems to only benefit those with proximity to officials at NYS as per concerns raised from several constituencies and what one can infer from the annual intakes in the Namibian Police, NDF and Correctional Services facility,” he highlighted.
Gariseb submitted a letter to the NYS executive management yesterday in which he asked: “We want to understand if there’s any truth to allegations that the NYS intake programme is used to create employment for friends, family and along tribal lines.”
Musukubili however maintained there’s a committee, comprising members from every constituency, who do the shortlisting. There’s a documented criteria collection.
His reference, the public relations officer who was supposed to provide the criteria, was unreachable on the office phone.
Musukubili said the biannual intake has two trainings this time.
The list New Era saw has 1301 names.
“Normally, we have one training at Rietfontein and Henties Bay, but this time, we have taken 1,000 [recruits] with 700 trained at Henties Bay, and 300 at Rietfontein. From the 300, not every constituency has the same number, because the majority of those in lower constituencies would have already been catered for in the bigger intake at Henties Bay,” Musukubili added.
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