Scores of youths in Lusaka are upset with the Patrotic Front (PF) government for duping them out of jobs under the ring road project in Lusaka.
The youths interviewed complained that the PF had put in a condition that Shimizu, a Japanese firm that is constructing the roads around Lusaka city, must employ people through PF ward councilors.
Zambia Reports spoke with a number of youths around Kamwala South who said it was irregular for Shimizu to employ people though politicians.
“This is why we have been cheated by these people. They promised us jobs, but when the jobs such as these, which are not even full time and the salary is small, they want to employ their cadres. How can you run a country like this? We all cannot be PF members. Zambia is our country and we need to benefit from it equally. Its not just for the PF and those who are closer to the PF,” said Justin Tembo, a job seeker from Chawama Township.
Another youth Samason Matokwani said he had been spending long hours at the Shimizu office, but the firm though PF ward councilors were employing outsiders. He said the ward councilors had made it know that they would not employ anyone who had no proven identify that he was a PF supporter.
“It is difficult to get a job under the PF. What we have seen here is discrimination of the worst order. There is no way we can allow such corruption and dictatorship because it seems this country belongs to PF members only. Each time we come here, they don’t even attend to us, but they are busy making selections of who employ from the lists that they bring from where ever,” he said.
Matokwani said the five years of PF leadership was going to be his greatest nightmare in life because the government had committed so many mistakes in the short time that they had been in power. He said the people of Zambia must wake up and stop the injustice because politics must be separated from people welfare.
“We hope these are not the jobs they will come and claim to have created. These jobs will end as soon as the road project finishes. Apart from that, the recruitment process is so biased and they only want t get PF supporters through ward councilors. In the history of Zambia, this is the first time we are seing ward councilors recruiting workers for a private company. Shimizu was here in Zambia to make township roads in the 1990s and they did not use ward councilors to recruit employees. Why should it be like this under the PF. Mr Sata must wake up and deal with this because we shall not spare him in 2016 and time is fast moving,” he said.
Efforts to get a comment from Local government Mnister emerine kabanshi failed because she was in a meeting. Kabanshi launched phase one of the ring road project in Lusaka recently. It is a project that was started under the MMD and was meant to offer alternative routes in Lusaka in order to beat the congestion that has heightened in the city.
A site manager from Shimizu who refused to speak on record said the ward councilors were recommending who the firm should employ. He said the directive to employ through ward councilors came from the Lusaka City Council.
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