Zimpapers Logo

Cde Zhuwao

Ranson Madzamba Correspondent
According to the Zimbabwe 2012 population census, the majority of people in the country are youths. These are those individuals aged 35 years and below. This means that as a key population, youths deserve to be the key drivers of the country’s economy and other facets.

Youths are in actual fact supposed to be the masters and shapers of the country since they are the majority.

Zimbabwe is well known for having educated people and the country boasts to be with the highest literacy rate on the African continent. A number of our graduates, however, do not at all think of creating employment since they are mostly trained to be employees rather than employers.

Those not employed are indeed waiting for the day the government shall employ them. But this is not the way to survive in this decade. The century we are into requires more of employers than employees

Speaking at the National Economic Empowerment Conference held at the City Sports Centre recently, the Minister of Youth, Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Cde Patrick Zhuwao, castigated some youths who were privileged to have received some loans from the CABS and ignored to pay them back.

Cde Zhuwao said this was disgusting and told the bank to take the defaulting youths to court if they do not happen to come up with ways on how they would want to make their payments.

Youths need to self-introspect.

Will our nation prosper if we ignore to pay back our loans and after all the majority of us have even failed to capitalise on the money and dismally failed to come up with viable projects?

It is true and the Minister was correct, we are supposed to pay back our loans as agreed and let us not abuse our banks. We are supposed to smell the coffee and start to be real business individuals. This world is demanding us to be like that. No one shall build the country except for the majority of the people who in this case happen to be us, the youths.

According to Cde Zhuwao, the Old Mutual through its bank CABS, has again availed US$ 1.7 million to help youths start some projects for their good and that of the nation. On top of that the Government of Zimbabwe, through the Ministry of finance, has actually released US$ 2.2 million to support the programmes and projects of by youths.

It is now up to the youths to smell the coffee and come up with some projects to empower themselves and benefit the nation at large.

There is need for the youths to be business-minded people and capitalise on the ample opportunity that is being created for them by the Government.

Youths must take note of the Nziramasanga Commission of Enquiry as well as take note of the functions of the department of Psychomotor in the President’s Office.

The youths, who are the majority must fight for noble ways on how they can employ themselves. This is what Zim-Asset is all about. This is what the Psychomotor department is all about and this is even contained in the Nziramasanga Commission of Enquiry.

This is the time the youths are supposed to be engaged more on issues to do with empowerment and not being used in pioneering factionalism within political spheres.

The youths thus must now focus on the dimension of development and desist from being used to engineer violence as reported in some sections of the country. This is the time to engineer development. It is high time the youths adopt the easy way of doing business and taking note of the steps taken by those who liberated this country since there is much to learn and copy from them. It is beyond reasonable doubt that the youths constitute the backbone of any political party and must accordingly act responsibly and act in manner that drives the nation forward.

This is the time the youths are supposed to be knock on Cde Zhuwao’s office and overwhelm him with ways on how to implement their projects. Gone are the days when the youths were looked down upon.

Zimbabwe, under the leadership of the great African Statesman, President Mugabe, is advocating for the empowerment of the black majority.

The youths are the majority and are supposed to likewise capitalise from such an enabling environment.