How Amuriat will create 1 million jobs 

FDC presidential candidate Patrick Oboi Amuriat addressing supporters in Madi-Okollo District on November 23, 2020. PHOTO/MICHAEL KAKUMIRIZI

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We are going to do this by financing more SMEs particularly run by young people and financing this will be through cutting down administrative costs and bringing down corruption to zero progressively,” Mr Patrick Oboi Amuriat
 

The presidential candidate of the Opposition Forum for Democratic Change (FDC), Mr Patrick Oboi Amuriat, has pledged to create at least one million jobs for the youth.
Mr Amuriat, who has since November 9, traversed regions of Teso, Lango, Acholi and currently in west Nile, said he would achieve this in the first year of his term.

In an interview with Daily Monitor yesterday, Mr Amuriat said he would fund all the Small-and-Medium Enterprises (SMEs), especially those that were hit by Covid-19 and are still shut down.

“We are going to do this by financing more SMEs particularly run by young people and financing this will be through cutting down administrative costs and bringing down corruption to zero progressively. That kind of behaviour that is taking money from productive areas to conservative areas and stealing is what is depriving the economy from developing,” he said. 

He added: “We shall also skill and retool semi-skilled and young people who will be taken for refresher courses to sharpen them up .This will help them to improve in what they can do and therefore be able to market their products.” 

Mr Amuriat also said they would condition international contractor companies to give jobs to the indigenous people.
 “... There are jobs that you find foreign companies importing their own people yet Ugandans can work in the same jobs, this will stop  because those who defy will not be given contracts,” he said.
Mr Amuriat also said his government will  stop contract jobs and create an environment where people who have reached their retirement age give the youth space.

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However, some people say  most presidential candidates usually make such promises during campaigns but when they take over, they go a different direction.
The Executive Director of Youths Aid Network, Mr Alexander Kyokwijuka, told Daily Monitor yesterday in a telephone interview that retiring those above 65 years cannot create the jobs for the majority. 

“Creating one million jobs in one year is applicable and it can help to reduce unemployment question in the country, but getting those jobs by retiring those at retirement age, I do not see that applicable because as we talk, only two per cent of Ugandans are aged 65 and above, so retiring a section of the 2 per cent to cater for the majority  is very impossible,” Mr Kyokwijuka said.

He, however, welcomed the idea of funding Small-and-Medium enterprises because it creates more jobs for the youth.
Mr Kyokwijuka asked the next government to ensure that they fund adequately all youth programmes and ensure that the intended people are reached.

He also called for promoting Buy Uganda, Build Uganda (BUBU) as another avenue to create more jobs.
“I want to warn a group of political leaders, especially candidates. They have mastered the art of telling Ugandans what they want to hear even when it is not possible. So it may not be possible to go by what they say because that is what they always tell us,” Mr Kyokwijuka  said.