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Higher and Tertiary Education, Science and Technology Development Deputy Minister Godfrey Gandawa

A difficult economic environment caused by illegal Western sanctions since 2000 has precipitated a massive contraction of the job market.

Thousands of skilled workers have lost their jobs as firms closed shop or scaled down operations. Yet universities and colleges have not responded by cutting down on enrolments; in fact, they are recruiting more students. On graduating, they come face to face with a contracted labour market, incapable of absorbing more workers. Only a small number of the graduates are lucky to secure jobs for which they were specifically trained.

Many have joined the informal sector or taken up jobs where their core skills are irrelevant or underutilised, like a person with a degree in finance having to teach Form One commerce. So while the graduate is employed, he is underemployed.

We recognise measures by the government to revive the economy notwithstanding the fact that illegal sanctions remain. But the extent to which the economy has declined — by a factor of up to 40 percent and depriving it of $42 billion in potential revenue — success will not be attained overnight.

So while jobs would be created internally as the government’s economic revival efforts bear fruit, other measures have to be explored to ensure those who will not be readily engaged will be catered for elsewhere.

It is in this context that we welcome the government’s moves to export labour to countries that need the skills that we have but that we can’t utilise.

The government has flighted advertisements inviting citizens who graduated from local universities and colleges since 1980 to register for possible employment in countries such as South Sudan, Botswana, Namibia and Angola.

“We are coming up with a policy as a Ministry to help our skilled manpower get jobs because there are countries with vacancies in various fields, but our people do not have access to those vacancies out there,” said Cde Godfrey Gandawa, the Deputy Minister in the Ministry of Higher and Tertiary Education, Science and Technology Development.

“As a ministry, we have taken the initiative to look for the jobs in those countries. We are still developing our human export policy and we have already signed memoranda of understanding with countries like South Sudan, Botswana, Angola and Namibia on that. — The companies or governments employing will pay us if the policy comes to be, while workers will earn their salaries there. In that way, the government will recoup its investment in human capital.”

Although the government is working on exporting labour in the context of an economy which is not growing fast enough to employ as many as 10,000 graduates that our institutions of higher learning are releasing every year, we see this as confirmation that our training is world-class that there are countries willing to sign government-to-government agreements to employ our graduates.

The placements, which jobseekers obviously expect to be made as soon as possible, would be a relief to them. A job would give the graduate a more reliable income and help improve his or her personal wellbeing. That would in turn give them that psychological satisfaction of being more useful in life, that after long years of intensive study, they are on a job and are paid for that. Their families, relatives and society at large would benefit as well because more people would be employed meaningfully and are able to look after them.

The employment deals would also remove some pressure off the government to create jobs. Indeed, that responsibility will not totally go away with the labour export agreements, but it is a fact that the demand for local jobs would not be as high. This gives the government room to concentrate on devising and implementing strategies to resuscitate the economy.

When the deals are up and running, remittances would necessarily increase, a situation that would benefit the economy too. More directly, as Cde Gandawa said, the economy would benefit through regular payments to the fiscus by companies and government that would benefit from our skills.

Already teachers’ unions have applauded the government for working on the proposal. Yes, it is still being fine-tuned, but we feel that a government-to-government approach inspires confidence. This will assure the jobseekers that although they are desperate for a job and a livelihood befitting their level of education, they will know that their job search will not lead them to nowhere.

We have had cases of people who have fallen victim to fake employment agencies who make jobseekers pay to undergo interviews and after that the prospective employers disappear. Yet others have had worse experiences. They have been promised jobs in countries like United Arab Emirates, Cyprus, Britain and America but on arriving there, they are forced into sex slavery. This cannot happen in government-to-government agreements.