It is no longer business as usual at the Ministry of Labour, as the newly appointed fire-breathing Minister, Peter Dimba, has announced that he has already secured 5, 000 more youth job deals with various Governments, local and international organisations, just awaiting for final paperwork.
Dimba spoke this in an interview with our reporter on Saturday when he hosted Yotamu Ng’ambi and Dilen Gabaza, Chairperson and Vice Chairperson of Israel Job Seekers.
The aim of the meeting was to review progress on Israel jobs and clear up the possible bottle necks.
This announcement comes various groups of youth seeking jobs in Israel, Qatar and other Middle East countries were set to stage demonstrations in order to voice out their frustrations on the slow progress regarding the job export agreement between governments of Israel and Malawi, and other countries.
Since the Government to Government MoU on agricultural labour export to Israel was signed, Malawi has only received 29 job orders from Israel and the program has been frustratingly slow.
Dimba has however breathed a fresh air of relief into the program by reviving the drive and engaging various stakeholders.
New group of young people is yet to travel to Israel to benefit from the jobs in the coming weeks.
Dimba picks up his Ministry work from another firely Minister, Vitumbiko Mumba, who had continued given headache to employers who enjoy taking advantage of Malawians by labour laws.
He now serves as Minister of Trade where he has continued to businesses such as Chipiku Stores for breach of trade laws.
When Dimba was asked about who exactly he is engaging, he reported that he has talked former Labour Minister, Vitumbiko Mumba, Seniors ministry officials, Counterpart in Foreign Affairs, various Private Recruiters led by their Chairperson, Justice Kangulu, Israel Government officials, and other stakeholders while reflecting on the clear charge given on Youth employment creation by State President, Dr. Lazarus McCarthy Chakwera.
“I have therefore come to a conclusion that Government is not capable of directly exporting youth Labour because of its busy-ness (bureaucracy) and therefore Private Agencies must be given the freedom and the support to spearhead the labour export not only to Israel but also other countries like Dubai, Qatar and other Middle Eastern countries where the demand for youth labour is very high,” he said.
Dimba also suggested that: “For me, it doesn’t matter who does what….what matters is the output (our youth be given the job opportunities. The role of Government will be to ensure that labour laws and many other legal requirements are upheld, and that the arrangement indeed benefits not only individual youths, but also the entire Malawian population.”
“As Government we will, through our foreign missions, provide due diligence and guard against human trafficking and ensure better conditions for the labour export deals.”
“My Ministry and I will not be an impediment to the labour export of our Youth and there is no telling as to how much the labour export could contribute to our Nation Social-economically.”
Defending Youth Labour export, Dimba argued that this will not be the time Malawi exports youth Labour.
“At the height of our Labour export in the 70s, we had about 130,000 Malawians working in gold mines in South Africa and our economy was growing at an average rate of 5%. Most of those that had built beautiful houses and bought vehicles (Datsun-pronounced as Datsuni, or Toyota Stout) in the villages in the 70s,80s and early 90s were pple that had been to South Africa through WENELA or TEBA.”
“I will therefore soon be clearing a number of Private Agencies that have received thousands of job orders from Middle Eastern countries to resume the export of labour so that the story of my good friends, Ng’ambi (all the way from Chitipa), Dalen (from Zomba) and thousands behind them could change for the better.And in the coming few weeks, recruitment adverts will be floated by the Private Agencies.”
“When people are hungry, it doesn’t matter who cooks the food, what matters is that the food is on the table and the hungry youth are partaking of it.”
“As the President usually says, the Youth that are a majority of our population are our greatest resource and must be put to work wherever there is space and opportunity otherwise an idle youth is a dangerous one…they are always on social media cursing, bullying out of frustration.”
Dimba has pledged that as long as it pleases His Excellency, the President to have him serve at the Ministry of Labour, he will NEVER allow any bureaucracy, Officer or any thing stand on the way of Labour export of our youth who are our greatest resource as an economy.