More than 2 000 jobs in road construction and maintenance in Gauteng will go to young people, Gauteng Premier Mbhazima Shilowa told a Youth Day rally at the Johannesburg Stadium on Saturday.
He said that in this financial year, an artisan skills-training programme will be launched with an initial intake of 8 000 young people.
”For this year, 20% of funding will go to support youth-led job-creation activities and enterprises and the establishment of youth- and women-led cooperatives in Gauteng’s six regions. Youth-owned SMMEs [small, medium and micro enterprises] will also be eligible for financial support,” he said.
”The Gauteng government has undertaken numerous initiatives to bring young people into the mainstream of social development and economic transformation of our province. We are conscious that Gauteng cannot be a successful city region if its young people are excluded from its transformation”.
Key initiatives to bring more young people into the mainstream of the economy include support for youth-owned SMMEs with an important focus on opportunities for unemployed graduates and bringing young people into the construction sector, he said.
Infrastructure investment has helped create jobs and attracted investment in sectors such as transport, tourism and the automotive industry. ”This has given many young people access to full-time jobs in the sector. Agricultural hubs and programmes provide support for young people to become farmers.”
Young people will also benefit from the community heritage programme, which entails the construction of memorial sites relating to the liberation struggle. The programme includes opportunities for employment and capacity building for veterans and unemployed graduates. So far, eight projects have been implemented, the premier said.
Inspiration
Meanwhile, Zimbabwe’s official opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) said the ”spectacular courage” shown by the youth of South Africa on June 16 1976 is an inspiration to the youth of Zimbabwe.
”The courageous children who perished in Soweto more than three decades ago are also great revolutionaries who inspire us as their courage clearly demonstrates that the youth can play a constructive role in the development of socio-economic and political solutions in their respective countries,” said Brighton Chiwola, MDC national youth secretary for information and publicity, in a statement.
He described conditions facing the Zimbabwean youth as ”hell on earth”.
”We cannot find jobs in our own country, education has become highly unaffordable, meaningless wages are rewards for the few still employed in the formal sector [and there are] day-to-day battles with the police as most youths have resorted to vending and touting at bus ranks,” he said.
”HIV/Aids is tearing us apart as young girls and boys resort to prostitution and homosexuality as a means of surviving, [and] ill treatment from foreign authorities as most youths resort to illegal immigration.”
The situation faced by the youth in Zimbabwe is exacerbated by repressive laws imposed by Mugabe’s government, he said. He likened their situation to that of the youth in Soweto when they protested against the ”unjust and criminal rule” of South African governance on June 16.
”Today we mark the day of the African child on June 16, and we are not only mourning the deaths of the deceased, but we are also saluting their spectacular courage.” — Sapa