By Taonga Sabola:
The Indigenous Businesses Association of Malawi (Ibam) has expressed worry over the increased number of jobless graduates in the country.
Ibam President, Mike Mlombwa, told The Daily Times on Tuesday that something needs to be done to control the situation.
Mlombwa’s comments come at a time over 4,500 graduates are coming out the country’s colleges every year with less than 500 are getting jobs annually.
“This is, to say the least, shocking. We expect our graduates to help us improve our businesses but we can’t take them on board because of the prevailing economic situation,” Mlombwa said.
Mid this year, the Malawi Government introduced internship programme for the youth to work in areas of agriculture, information and communication technology, manufacturing and small scale mining in order for them to gain practical experience.
The government planned to create job opportunities for 17,000 youth in the next two and half years, hence the introduction of internship programme.
The interns are being attached to companies, institutions and organisations for a period of six and l2 months.
Commenting on business environment in 2018, Mlombwa said the year promised a lot but delivered a little.
He said indeginous businesses were upbeat at the start of 2018 as a number of elements appeared to be in their favour.
“As you are aware, last year we lobbied for the provision to have 60 percent of government businesses going to indeginous black Malawians. This was ably passed by Parliament and accented to by the President. This was an important milestone.”
He said businesses will be going into 2019 with pessimism that things will get better.
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