Kabwe Central member of parliament Tutwa Ngulube says Zambian youths have nothing to celebrate on Youth Day commemorations today because their government has not fulfilled any of the promises it has made to them.

And Ngulube has charged that the Ministry of Youth and Sport is a dead ministry because it is not seen standing up for the youth in the country.

Speaking to News Diggers in an interview, Ngulube regretted that President Edgar Lungu and the PF government had made a lot of pronouncements relating to youth empowerment and yet nothing was being actualised.

“I think what we wish to see is a more practical approach to some of the pronouncements that the government has been making. At least we should begin now to actualise our promises. If we say we are going to offer the youths jobs, let us at least create even one job because that is better than just making mere pronouncements. And then we should also find a way of harnessing the potential that our youths have. Our youths countrywide have a lot of talent, skills and labour but government’s support is minimal. The Ministry of Youth and Sport also seems to be a dormant ministry, it’s dead in other words because we don’t see it working,” Ngulube said.

“Even when we hear all the pronouncements during youth day, we do not see how the national budget captures those aspirations that the youths normally have. So, 2018 going forward, we want to see at least some of the pronouncements that government makes being budgeted for in the national budget. That’s the only way we can be assured that people will definitely get their jobs.”

he wondered why the government was promising more jobs when it was failing to employ trained teachers.

“I will give you an example of the trained teachers, we have got a lot of trained teachers and they are thousands here in Kabwe. But government does not employ them. We also have a lot of talent and skill, there are people wanting to join the Army, people wanting to join ZNS but we don’t see recruitment happening very often. So that is one of the areas where I think we need to find some way of giving the people what they used to have. For example, those who are trained as teachers already, what would be the explanation for not giving them jobs? There would be no proper explanation,” he observed.

“So it’s important that we begin to recruit some of those people who have already been trained. The majority of Zambians today are completing Grade 12 education and most of them are even reaching college level but we do not seem to have a policy of bringing in our youths into various sectors to work. As a result, our youths remain languishing in the streets. So we don’t seem to know what will happen next to our youths.”

Ngulube emphasised that there was nothing that Zambian youths would be celebrating on this day, seeing that nothing government promised had been fulfilled.

“Well, I think right now there is nothing to celebrate. Honestly speaking, there is nothing for youths to celebrate at the moment. What we have now is a situation where probably we should pause for a moment and decide what is going to happen. Last year, the President made a lot of pronouncements, including the 500 thousand jobs within five years. We hoped we would begin to see at least one job every month but as you have seen, most of the projects have stalled, contractors who used to employ our youths are not working and as a result, it’s a pity that we are not making head-ways. We are not moving forward,” Ngulube said.

And Ngulube said PF would lose out if it continued lying to its people.

“Yes, and the first and most practical consequence of government not fulling its promises is that we lose members, when people start voting, they vote according to the promises that you made. So if you don’t actualise your promises, you risk losing power. Very soon we will have nobody in State House because the people would have actually felt that they were lied to. So those are the consequences of not fulfilling promises. It just has a way of hitting back at the government,” said Ngulube.