29 Jun 2014

Government is concerned with the unruly behaviour among young people and their failure to utilise programmes meant to uplift their standard of living, President Lt Gen. Seretse Khama Ian Khama has said.

Responding to complaints of bad behavior among young persons in Molepolole North due to drunkenness, he said the trend was worrisome as youths failed to utilise opportunities availed to them.

“Opportunities are there, it’s only for youth to stand up to utilise programmes meant to uplift their lives. Government can’t force them to change behaviour, but can only put in place some intervention measures like what we currently have,” he said.

The President said owing to importance of youth in developing the country, government put in place arrays of economic programmes such as the Youth Empowerment Scheme (YES), National Service, Internship, CEDA’s Young Farmers Fund and the youth grant to improve employability of youth by building their work experience.

He said to show commitment to assisting youths, his administration increased the youth grant from P30 million in 2008 to P120 million to date and conceded that this was however not adequate, and implored stakeholders dealing with youth matters to always engage youth in order to come up with projects tailored to youth needs. 

The President said the inclusive policy apart from creating employment to youth and facilitating access to public funding services was also geared towards luring them from risky income generation activities such as crime and drug use.

He said interventions such as constituency tournaments were created to nurture raw talent to assist especially young persons to make a living from talent since all could not work in offices considering lack of employment opportunities in the market.

He further said it was regrettable that even youths with no financial means continued to be a problem in the society after consuming alcohol. This situation, he said, called for collaborative efforts among  parents and other stakeholders to arrest the situation and build responsible citizens.

On issues of allowance increases and salary hike for community leaders and civil servants, President Khama said government recognised contributions made by VDCs and government employees, but the world financial situation was not allowing for any salry increment .

He, however, said there was a sign of economic recovery, which might result in allowances and salary hike for employees and VDCs provided other competing interests which had been a priority to government would not crop up such as Foot and Mouth Disease and drought. ENDS