Zambézia: Housing and unemployment worry young people – Mozambique

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Zambézia: Housing and unemployment worry young people – Mozambique

2:50 CAT | 08 Jun 2018

DW / [Illustrative picture] Youth unemployment is around 13% in Zambézia province

Young people from Zambezia province say they face difficulties both in finding jobs in the civil service and in building homes. There are government programmes for assigning construction plots to young people, but the process is slow.

The difficulties of young people are many and varied, starting with unemployment. Young people say it is very difficult to get a job in the province. Youth unemployment stands at 13 percent, according to the latest statistical data from Zambézia’s provincial labour directorate. Young people criticise local authorities for recruiting candidates from other provinces for positions in the civil service.

Employment only for some?

Sumaila Sumila, a resident of the Namacura district, voiced these criticisms at a recent meeting of the Provincial Youth Council. He maintains that his province has plenty of young people with adequate qualifications, but that the opportunities go to others.

Symbolbild SÃ¼dafrikas Wirtschaft - niedriges Wachstum — *[Illustrative picture] Young people complain about waiting years for construction site*

“Some chiefs and leaders bring in their siblings, nephews and even in-laws to occupy posts in the civil service, while the children from home [get] nothing. This case should be looked into urgently,” Sumila said.

But provincial Youth Director Beato Dias says these accusations are absurd and should not worry young people.

“Any Mozambican can work in any part of the country,” he said. “There are no places reserved for natives [locals]. Our government stands for national unity, and there is no place for “localism” or tribalism. Our government does not encourage this kind of thing.”

Waiting for response to housing

Another difficulty for young people is building a house. The provincial government says that a thousand plots have been distributed to young people in all districts in Zambézia province since 2011, but several young people say they were not given one.

Frederico Eusebio is one such. He lives in Gurué district and has waited four years for the authorities to tell him where he can build a house.

“In Gurué district, we have a very large area identified for construction plots, but we have had no satisfactory reply since 2014.When we go to the district youth services, we are told to go to Infrastructure. In Infrastructure they say the process is in Agriculture and Agriculture says the process is in the District Services!”

Slow process

Over the weekend, about 70 young people from the Provincial Youth Council met the authorities to find out to what extent the province was complying with its obligation to facilitate housing for young people, as determined by the Mozambican central government seven years ago.

Mosambik GebÃ¤ude Direktion fÃ¼r Landwirtschaft in Zambezia — *Government institutions move the responsibility of allocating plots from one to another*

Estêvão José Neves, President of the Zambézia Provincial Youth Council acknowledges that “action is slow”.

“We have some districts that are implementing this youth policy, where many plots have already been ceded, but little is being done in the construction process. There is a need to make an analysis of what is failing when the young acquires a plot. When it is acquired in other ways, it is easy to build, but when it is ceded by the government, there are many difficulties,” Neves concedes.

Youth Director Dias acknowledges that there are problems but promises he will try to solve the problem.

“One of the district’s difficulties is that the attribution of land use rights entails certain costs, and the young person receives the plot but it is left unused for a long time. Gurué is one of the districts with such problems. The municipality ignored all that had been planned before,” he told DW.

Source: Deutsche Welle