THE move to reintroduce the National Youth Service training programme has sent chills down most Zimbabweans’ spines who experienced brutality at the hands of Green Bombers in 2008.
The re-introduction of this programme shows that the government has failed to create employment for youths. This is also testimony that Zimbabwe is now gearing itself to be a full fledged military country.
We know that the 2023 elections are around the corner and innocent youths are going to be used to beat up and threaten people to vote for the ruling Zanu PF party.
These youths are being dragged to do dirty work for the selfish regime.
Was it really the idea of Youth minister Kirsty Coventry to re-introduce this militia group which unleashed terror during the 2008 elections under the late former President Robert Gabriel Mugabe or she is being used as a front by Zanu PF political bigwigs?
If the government is very serious about this programme, then we must see the children of Zanu PF leaders being the first to enrol like they do for national scholarships.
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The government does not have the capacity to run such a programme when it is struggling to run vocational training centres.
If the government is failing to pay civil servants a living wage, how is it going to fund such a useless programme?
At times like these, such useless programmes must be shelved. They have a history of causing division and harm. So what is the difference between the old dispensation of Mugabe and the new dispensation?
President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s government is running out of ideas and is just copying and pasting Mugabe’s toxic policies.
While some countries have successfully run those programmes, Zimbabwe has a record of bastardising the concept by recruiting brainwashed youths who cannot put food on the table because they are jobless and end up joining such programmes just to get a meal to survive.
This programme was responsible for thousands of deaths and violent acts against members of the opposition. Indoctrinating youths will not solve the economic challenges being faced by the country.
Leonard Koni