President Hage Geingob has acknowledged the prevailing high rate of youth unemployment in the country, saying it needs consultation before it can be declared a national crisis.

The Head of State said this while responding to questions asked by some of the members from opposition parties in the National Assembly, regarding high youth unemployment at the State of the Nation Address (SONA) here on Thursday.

“First we have to acknowledge there’s high youth unemployment in the country before declaring it as a national crisis, as a country we focus on education, that we have a successful education system. This crisis is caused by quality education offered here,” said Geingob.

Geingob emphasised though that he is not to answer questions regarding the situation and all questions must be referred to parliamentarians.

“I am not a parliamentarian to be answering to these questions regarding youth unemployment in the country, ask your fellow parliamentarians to address those questions. I am the Head of State and that is the difference,” said Geingob.

A member of Parliament from opposition party, the United Democratic Front (UDF) Themistokles Murorua, had said that the president did not fully address the situation of high youth unemployment in the country.

“The president in 2019 said that technical subjects would be introduced at secondary level in schools that will help our youth to start learning and build the basics of value addition, to build industries that they can benefit from but up to now nothing has been done,” stressed Murorua.

He added that it remains a big concern that most of the schools in Namibia do not have computer labs which is a factor contributing to high unemployment.

Murorua further suggested that from all the reported oil discoveries in the country, jobs must be created so that Namibian people get employment opportunities.

Source: The Namibian Press Agency