Prime Minister Sam Matekane this week spoke about his government’s ambitious plan to generate jobs for thousands of unemployed Basotho youths.
The address came a week after a build-up of tensions among hordes of unemployed youths who feel sidelined in the jobs market.
The youths, who have been frustrated for years, are now demanding solutions to their collective misery.
They want jobs and they want them now. And they want them from Matekane and his government.
After all, it’s what they were fervently promised by Matekane and his party three years ago.
Matekane has responded with a battery of promises to create jobs. It sounds like a desperate scramble to squeeze jobs from an economy that has been incapable of creating any for decades.
So he points to projects, mostly government-driven, as the source.
The result is thousands of jobs, most of which appear temporary and unsustainable.
That is to be expected. He is a leader desperate to be seen to be responding to the people’s pleas.
Matekane said his government plans to hire 6 000 skilled and unskilled youths for various government programmes.
About 3 000 youths will be recruited to rehabilitate village roads.
Another 1 220 youths for a tree-planting and climate-resilient livelihoods project. Some 2 700 youths being recruited to assist with electricity connection projects.
Another 365 to track fuel imports at borders and identify households without electricity.
Some 200 people to be hired to drive the newly bought agricultural tractors. Other young people will be assisted to start their own businesses, according to Matekane.
While most people do not doubt Matekane’s sincerity, their criticism is that his plan does not to go deep enough to address the structural challenges in Lesotho’s economy.
Matekane’s address this week appears to have been a direct response to that call for action and an acknowledgment of the youths’ urgent demands.
Yet even after his address this week, we hear of muffled criticism of Matekane’s jobs plan. Critics see the above proposals as mere stopgap measures that will not go far enough in denting the unemployment levels.
Their criticism is that Matekane does not seem to have a concrete strategy to stimulate the economic growth that will lead to the creation of sustainable jobs.
We note though his eagerness to create a conducive environment for private companies to thrive so that they can employ more people.
He said his government will review the tax framework for private companies to enable them to expand their operations and increase recruitment. That sounds good.
Matekane wants private companies to increase the employment of youths as well as women.
That too sounds good. We wait however to see how the tax breaks will work in practice.
So far, what we have are vague promises to review the tax regime.
In a government that is already battling a cash crunch, there is likely to be some resistance in some quarters about the tax breaks.
We have a problem though with Matekane’s push to support big companies “that have a capacity to employ a significant number of people” as he put it.
In our humble opinion, we believe the key to creating jobs lies in supporting small and medium enterprises. It is a well-known fact that it is small and medium companies that drive economic growth globally.
Lesotho should not push to create conglomerates. What it needs are small, sustainable companies. It is the small, local companies that will need support.
Given our lack of competitiveness, we are unlikely to attract huge international investors. That is why we need to support small companies so that they employ more people.
