{Independent presidential candidate Amama Mbabazi has said if he is voted into power, his government will create five million new jobs in five years.}
Speaking at a rally in Kayunga District, Mr Mbabazi said the jobs are intended to save the youth from unemployment and increase the country’s productivity. “My government will especially focus on creating job opportunities for the youth.”
According to Mr Mbabazi, the promised jobs will come from both government and the private sector. He asked the people of Kayunga to read his manifesto to know where the jobs will come from.
In his manifesto, Mr Mbabazi notes: “We expect, in the next 5 years, such opportunities to have created between 500,000 – 1,000,000 jobs in the private sector. We also expect that within 3 years, we will have created 3.5 million new jobs from the new initiatives.” Most of the jobs will be through the sub-county governance model.
“Our proposed set-up will empower the community to attract more of such services as transport, finance, hotels and restaurants, insurance, energy, telecommunications, ICT, education, leisure centres and increased demand of processed products,” the Go Forward pressure group manifesto reads in part.
It adds: “This, in effect, will create a higher demand for workers to deliver goods and services to all corners of the country and ultimately attract opportunities for investors both local and foreign.”
Where are the jobs?
The Go Forward team intends to make the sub-county the basic unit of administration. Mr Mbabazi says 444,160 new jobs will be created in the 1,388 sub-counties.
These will be through initiatives like a community bank per sub-county, expected to create 12,492 jobs, health insurance services, expected to create 16,656 jobs, warehouse receipting, for the cooperatives, expected to create 166,656 jobs.
More 3.5 million jobs, the manifesto shows, will be through expanding the economy and “creating greater opportunity”.
Another new jobs initiative is the residential solar grid-tied system. It is a system which will allow solar power users to release their excess solar power onto the national grid to increase the quantity of power.
“This will create about 2,000 new jobs from the procurement of the panels to their maintenance.”
Meanwhile, Mr Mbabazi also promised to address the issue of land in Kayunga by putting in place a moratorium on land acquisition until all controversial land matters have been resolved.
“I don’t know the people who are taking your land but whoever they are, they will be stopped,” Mr Mbabazi responded to the residents’ pleas.
Tomorrow, Mr Mbabazi will be in Wakiso District and thereafter head to western Uganda starting with Kabale.
The statistics
Mr Amama Mbabazi’s promise comes at a time when, according to the latest World Bank records, Uganda’s unemployment rate stands at 3.8 per cent while the Uganda Bureau of Statistics’ 2013 report put youth unemployment at 75 per cent. It also comes at a time when, according to the latest Auditor General’s report, more than 30,000 government jobs remain vacant, half of those being at local government level.
SOURCE:DAILY MONITOR:[Mbabazi promises to create 5 million jobs->http://www.monitor.co.ug/SpecialReports/Elections/Mbabazi-promises-to-create-5-million-jobs/-/859108/2989192/-/hgwkq/-/index.html]
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