"We Create Opportunities, Take Or Leave" - Govt
The Minister of Lands, Agriculture, Water and Rural Resettlement, Dr Anxious Masuka has said the government is creating opportunities for graduates but it would be to them to utilise or ignore those opportunities.
He made the remarks in response to a solo protest by an unemployed agriculture graduate Dickson Kubvakacha the founder and chairperson of the Coalition of Agricultural Graduates of Zimbabwe (COAGZ).
A picture of Kubvakacha selling sweets on a crowded dusty street in Mbare went viral on social media platforms prompting Masuka to comment dismissing the demonstration as a disappointing attention-seeking gesture. He said:
I want to think that this is a joke and that the comrade in question (Kubvakacha) will immediately remove his social media page.
Last year, I personally addressed COAGZ and Kubvakacha was present where I outlined the procedure for one to apply for land.
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The minister said the government provides graduates with opportunities to be taken up by those willing to do so.
I also highlighted numerous opportunities that any agricultural graduate has in the agricultural space.
It cannot, then, be the Zimbabwean government’s responsibility to spoon-feed the individual.
We create opportunities, and it is up to the individual to take advantage of those opportunities or not.
This is extremely disappointing, to say the least.
This comes as thousands of graduates which local universities churn out every year are unemployed at the work of company closures and absence of support or capital to start own income-generating initiatives.
The government has often urged graduates to be innovative adding that not every graduate will have to be employed.
Scores of graduates are unemployed while some are underemployed (the International Labor Organisation says everyone employed to do what he/she is overqualified to do in underemployed) or are in the informal sector trying everything to bring food to the table.
The Zimbabwean economy has been on the downward trend for over to decades now and there is no prospect for recovery.
More: NewsDay
