Hypocrite ’employed’ Minister hammered for saying graduates must create own jobs

Higher and Tertiary Education Minister Amon Murwira has been blasted for claiming that unemployed graduates must create their own opportunities when he has been employed by the government without any constituency that voted for him.

In a country with more than 80% unemployment rate, Murwira made sensational claims in Parliament this week that Zimbabwe is not suffering a brain drain but circulation, adding that seeking jobs should be “a thing of the past”.

He was responding to a question: “What is government’s position with regards to brain drain as a result of those that have been trained yet are not employed?”

Murwira responded, “Zimbabwe will continue training people and we are also changing the philosophy of why we go to school.

“We go to school in order to be able to use our knowledge and skills and attitudes to start new enterprises. We should no longer talk about brain drain. We talk about brain circulation.

“We will be able to train our people so that they are useful to us either locally or elsewhere and they will be able to do things and be able to be useful to the country.

“This is a deep philosophy which diverts from the philosophy of going to school to be employed by the colonial master, kuzvishandira, kwete kushandiswa.

“Brain drain assumes that the pot which is cooking people has stopped cooking. We will continue cooking our people in our higher and tertiary education institutions.

“Hativapedzi, ticharamba tichi trainer vanhu to the extent that these days what they call brain drain is actually brain circulation because we can still use our people wherever they are.”

Commenting on the issue, former cabinet Minister Walter Mzembi labeled Murwira a “hypocrite” saying he was employed by the government through the back door.

Murwira is among the list of Ministers without constituencies hence they have no mandate from the people except from the President himself.

“This man is an employee of the Government of Zimbabwe as Tertiary Education Minister, Dr Amon Murwira. He is dropping the ladder on his graduates and asking them to be entrepreneurs not job seekers. He has always been a worker himself, now a hypocrite too,” the former Tourism Minister said.

“As a follow up, the people are the employers of Members of Parliament ( MPs), Dr Murwira was employed through the back door as a Non Constituency MP. He must respect the people. If his Government has no Jobs Creation Plan, he must shut up.”

Economist Tinashe Murapata dismissed Murwira’s sentiments saying that, in developed countries “less than 5% of the population is under the broadest definition of self employment (entrepreneurship).

“Most people in developed nations (90%) are employed.”

Murapata added: “The hallmark of a developed or even developing nation is big business. In economics the bigger the better. Beyond just economies of scale.

“Schumpeter was particularly emphatic about this point in economic development. He saw the largest businesses as the engine of economic growth.

“In some way Professor Murwira is admitting; (1) the government’s own defeatist mindset, unable to attract big investment (FDI) explains the high risk low reward Zim finds itself in.

“(2) There is a lack of critical thinking in government to understand the development trajectory. For example, Why should a good black farmer not expand his business hundred fold by buying as much land as he can.

“That’s the only way he gains from economies of scale. If he remains with one farm he is taking a lot of risks with little reward commensurate with the risk taken.

“A tuckshop owner -grows to become a multiple chain grocer. One Chicken Inn grew to over 600. A farmer can’t grow in Zim as per government policy.”

Brighton Musonza, a Portfolio Asset Management Client Accountant said “Prof. Amon Murwira must know is that most countries that have succeeded turning their people into entrepreneurs have done so through vocational training of artisans and craftsmen, not through ultra academic universities. Lofty university graduates don’t turn into entrepreneurs.”