NOEL IYOMBWA writes
THE National Council for Construction (NCC) has been challenged to help government reduce unemployment levels by training more youths in the sector.
The challenge was thrown by Housing and Infrastructure Development Minister Vincent Mwale who said there were currently many unemployed youths when Zambia was witnessing unprecedented levels of construction activities
In a statement Issued by the Ministry’s public relations officer Jeff Banda, Mr Mwale said government had an obligation to create employment.
“However there is also need to prepare citizens for the jobs by empowering them with necessary education and skills,” he said
Mr Mwale said NCC should therefore scale up its construction training programmes countrywide and enroll as many youths as possible.
He was speaking at his office when he met NCC management which was led by executive director Matthew Ngulube.
He said he supported the directive of his predecessor, Ronald Chitotela, for the NCC to set up construction training schools in all provincial centers so that many people, especially the youths to acquire construction skills.
“The country is witnessing unprecedented levels of construction activities, meaning that there are a lot of jobs in the construction sector, but the saddening part is that most workers are foreigners because of a shortfall of skilled Zambians in the construction sector,
“My ministry, through you the NCC should therefore help bridge this gap by training many people so that they are employed by construction companies.” Mr Mwale said.
The Minister said that once people had required construction skills, unemployment would be a thing of the past because jobs in the construction sector were readily available.
And Mr Mwale also challenged the NCC to look for modern technologies in the construction sector which should in turn lead to cheap construction techniques.
And Mr. Ngulube agreed that NCC was also concerned with the high cost of construction in Zambia and it was doing its part through its current mandate to review the cost of all government infrastructures.
He also said the NCC was in the process of being transformed into the National Construction Authority (NCA) and that all relevant legal requirements had been drafted and submitted to the Ministry of Justice.
Mr. Ngulube said as an authority the NCC has proposed new powers on how best to ensure that there was value for money for all government infrastructure being constructed.
