Government has brought back the controversial National Youth Service with the graduation of over 80,000 entrants now to be called Green Bombers.
The State calls it the National Youth Service (NYS) but opposition parties say it is a mere ZANU PF program part of the wider terror network to be used to intimidate voters at election time.
President Robert Mugabe’s nephew and Youth Minister Patrick Zhuwao said the 80 000 graduates scattered around the country should have a hand in economic development.
He made the remarks after meeting the NYS Association members in Harare yesterday. “We have 80 000 graduates that are willing to make this economy move,” he said.
“This is a huge amount of human capital that we should be taking advantage of. I am going to co-ordinate your interactions with Government because the solution to the Zimbabwean economy lies with us Zimbabweans. Foreigners will only come to assist us and they do that on our terms. We are taking a strategic focus which focuses on Zim-Asset and the 10-point plan and we looking at localising the 10-point Plan so that it is implemented at ward level and co-ordinated to the constituency level.”
Zhuwao added: “In line with the economic empowerment strategy that the ministry is finalising, the NYS will play a crucial role through programmes such as Youth Build Zimbabwe, Youth Feed Zimbabwe and Youth Secure Zimbabwe which will be implemented at community level. Special emphasis will be on in-situ training.”
Zhuwao quoted by the state broadcaster said his ministry was working on the legislative framework to regulate the NYS programme and was re-institutionalising training in line with the directive by President Mugabe in February.
“Cabinet of June 16, 2012 directed the ministry to make legislative amendments to the National Service Act (Number 19, Chapter 11:08 of 1979) and we are currently working on that,” he said.
“It was during this period that camp-based NYS training stopped due to inadequacy of financial resources. The principles of the NYS Bill are now under consideration and will be submitted to the Attorney-General’s Office to pursue the enactment of a NYS legislation.”
He said since President Mugabe’s directive, camp-based training had been re-introduced at Dadaya Training Centre in Midlands with 112 people graduating two weeks ago.
Zhuwao defended his move saying it was unfortunate that “certain narratives” were being created to downplay the importance of NYS yet many countries, including Western ones, had a similar programme.
He said NYS graduates had also immensely contributed to the peace and security being enjoyed in the country as they also went through conflict prevention, management, resolution and transformation skills.