I recently had a rather interesting conversation with some young people on Facebook.

These chats started with usual pleasantries and then developed into inquiries about how Canada is and how a young person could migrate to Canada. Two of the youths graduated from university five years ago and had never secured formal employment.

They felt a deep sense of dejection, that their country has let them down. One youth had completed undergrad and was summing up a master’s degree in business administration, a program that many young people are enlisting.

These stories are rampant. Many young people are graduating from colleges and universities and have simply no start-up capital to invest, little skills and no proper supervision to translate classroom knowledge into a resource for earning a living. At over 83 per cent youth unemployment, we should worry excessively that this is a major security concern.

Certainly, the government is aware of this problem and must be worried about it. However, few aspects of our economy need streamlining. First, we must continuously challenge the people who design our school curricula to tailor curriculum development towards the rapidly liberalizing economy. Curriculum should focus on business models, apprenticeships, research, critical thinking, and innovation.

Second, the tradition of graduates hoping to get employment with government or established business needs challenging right from the classroom. Government is now behaving like an ethnic enclave where favoritism and tribalism pervades every department. Job opportunities with government are no longer on merit.

Third, and most important, is for the government to enlighten the population about the operationalization of the economy. Government today is chocking with an extremely high cost of public administration.

The cost of politics and sustaining politicians has diverted critical funding from youth entrepreneurial development and development of infrastructure such as resource centres, recreation centres and centres for social innovations where youths could channel their ideas, energies and synergies.

When we leave our youths to wander without guidance, we breed insecurity. The apathy among young people now towards the establishment is a time bomb about to explode.

Morris Komakech,
mordust_26@yahoo.ca.

Understanding today’s climate change

More than 100 years ago, people around the world started burning large amounts of coal, oil, and natural gas to power their homes, factories, and vehicles.

Today, most of the world relies on these fossil fuels for their energy needs. Burning fossil fuels releases carbon dioxide, a heat-trapping gas, into the atmosphere, which is the main reason why the climate is changing.

Heat-trapping gases (greenhouse gases) exist naturally in the atmosphere, where they help keep the earth warm enough for plants and animals to live. But people are adding extra greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. These gases are causing the earth to get warmer, setting off all sorts of other changes around the world, on land, in the oceans, and in the atmosphere. And these changes affect people, plants, and animals in many ways.

Rain patterns are changing, sea level is rising, and snow and ice are melting sooner in the spring. As global temperatures continue to rise, we will see more changes in our climate and our environment. These changes will affect people, animals, and ecosystems.

Less rain means less water for some places, while too much rain causes terrible flooding. More hot days dry up crops and make people and animals sick. In some places, people struggle to cope with a changing environment. In other places, people are not able to successfully prepare for these changes.

The negative impacts of global climate change will be less severe overall if people reduce the amount of greenhouse gases we are putting into the atmosphere and worse if we continue producing these gases at current or faster rates.

Nsubuga Henry, 
Kampala.

Fight graft to end poverty, diseases

In the 21st century, it’s disgusting to read majority of outpatient treatments in Uganda are from malaria, a preventable disease! Malnutrition, another entirely preventable condition, is also a killer and a major health burden to a country which targets to achieve middle-income status by 2020. This is all because of corruption.

Our politicians are focusing on trivial issues and neglecting the ones that really affect our people. We were promised roads, schools, hospitals but in return our people received illiteracy, agony and deaths from silly diseases.

Funds meant for health sector improvements are stolen by a few who take their children to advanced countries for treatment of basic diseases. When shall we hold our leaders accountable?

If our leaders become transparent and accountable, we can control diseases, we can improve on our education systems, we can increase crop production and we can improve on our infrastructure. The human costs of corruption are diverse.

Ivan Munguongeyo,
Kampala.

Ingrid got what she deserved

The saying ‘Never throw stones when you have a glassed house’ reflects directly on the FDC secretary for mobilization Ingrid Turinawe who experienced the wrath of legislators on Tuesday.

Having earlier described them as ‘Mpigs’, Turinawe was roundly rejected by members of the 10th parliament when she appeared before them vying for a slot to the East African Legislative Assembly.

A few days back, Muhammad Nsereko, the Kampala Central MP, openly urged fellow MPs not to elect Turinawe. Among other things, Nsereko accused her of being behind a group of youths that dropped piglets at parliament bearing names of legislators including his.

Others were saying that she used to abuse and undermine them and it was their time to behave like her. Ingrid will live to remember her deeds and the 10th parliament because what goes around comes around.

David Serumaga,
erumagadavid916@gmail.com.

Govt should exercise power according to the law

Barely 10 days after the now powerful minister for Kampala, Beti Olive Kamya, had given a directive for Park Yard market occupants to vacate the premises within 30 days, the victims, to the shock of their lives, woke up to find the area sealed.

What followed next were graders razing the structures down.Listening to the cries of the crestfallen victims, you could feel pain for the agony they were subjected to and sense that government was acting inhumanly to the people it is supposed to protect. All this was done in the name of a developer.

But when you look at these so-called investors that government has given land ranging from Namanve industrial park to the famous Shimoni Demostration School, not much development can be seen.

Government recently cancelled several land titles for the developers who failed to put up factories at Namanve. Shimoni land, which was given to a Saudi developer, has remained undeveloped apart from the tall incomplete building that has been erected and fenced off for years.

How sure are we that the Park Yard developer project will take off, and not be like the Shimoni one? It is hurting to see government mistreat its own citizens who pay taxes.

This is not the first time those who hold power have rendered the citizens helpless. Remember the eviction of tenants at Nakawa low-income housing estate and the residents of Nsambya after the railway crossing.

It’s high time government showed a human face to the people it is ruling; otherwise, the tears of the helpless will one day haunt those who exercise power arbitrarily.

You can imagine the lives of families which have been put at stake due to this inhumane eviction. TV cameras showed images of people wailing, wondering how they were going to service their loans. I saw a university student who was running a restaurant with her mother to raise tuition fees crying that her education was at stake.

Surely, is that the best way to govern society?

Franco Eggassu,
Kampala

letters@observer.ug