BY GIDEON NYENDWA
GOVERNMENT should halt all the youth empowerment programmes that are currently taking place and put up mechanisms that will ensure that ordinary citizens also benefit from the empowerment programs because all are entitled, Youth in Action for Sustainable Development (YASD) executive director Zebedy Lukwesa said.
Mr. Lukwesa said it was unfair that only cadres were benefiting from empowerment programs.
He said the ministry of Youth and Sport should stop all the empowerment activities to make sure that proper procedures are being followed in acquiring access to the empowerment packages.
“The empowerment packages are politicized and only people who belonged to certain political parties are able to access the packages,” he said.
Mr. Lukwesa said there were a lot of talented groups that were not being considered because cadres were given first hand in accessing the empowerment packages.
He said there was need to decentralize the process of empowerment to district level in order to capture every youth that is out there from all the corners of the country.
“All the districts should have been benefiting from the empowerment packages for the youths,” he said.
Mr. Lukwesa said that it was unfortunate that the people in the cities were the only ones who were benefiting from the empowerment packages.
He also called on the government to consider training the youths before giving them huge amounts of money that they cannot handle in the form of empowerment.
Mr. Lukwesa said that most of the youths have been failing to pay back the monies which they get because they lack the expertise to sustain the businesses they venture in after being empowered.
He said it was shocking to find out that most of the youths in the rural areas were not aware of the empowerment packages that the ministry was giving because information was not reaching them.
Mr. Lukwesa said this is the reason why politicians were taking advantage of the situation by giving their cadres because people were not coming up.
