The frustrations endured by thousands of graduates, sitting at home without meaningful employment, are well known problems in our country. 

It is sad that many are drowning in their own misery and have desperate tales to tell at the moment. This dreadful crisis is worsened by the depressingly high unemployment rate among young people and not to forget the economic crisis befalling our nation.  Their prospects of adding value to the Namibian economy are evidently crippled by the unemployment crisis currently enveloping our nation, amid high levels of inequality. According to the Namibia Statistics Agency, almost every second young person in Namibia is without a job. 
The most recent figures from the Namibia Statistics Agency indicate that the country’s overall unemployment rate dropped slightly from 34 percent in 2016 to 33.4 percent in 2018. However, the statistics show that the youth are still the most unemployed group in the country with a staggering 46 percent of young people still without jobs. This is worrisome and the fact that there is relatively little discontent about it does not mean the unemployed people are adjusting reasonably well to the situation. 

The so-called time ticking bomb has already exploded because the status quo has been allowed to fester to a point that it has reached boiling point. 

It goes without saying that unemployment is one of the biggest challenges Namibia is facing and those vying for political office must park their populist electioneering on the side and come up with concrete and achievable measures to address this growing problem. Creating that conducive environment for businesses to operate and simply advocating for the creation of jobs will not be good enough if we don’t have the right policies and implementation targets in place. We can come with all the good solutions including boosting our country’s image as an investment destination and expanding growth beyond the national capital. 

However, our Achilles heel has always been implementation of these critical policies. As we approach voting day, politicians must therefore present to the electorate sound economic development programmes and which are capable to providing gainful employment. The powers that be must therefore focus on accelerating economic growth in order to find a sustainable solution to the scourge of unemployment in Namibia, which has now reached unprecedented levels. 

Decisive action is indeed needed. We also want to see a situation whereby political parties collectively take responsibility for failing to honour campaign promises, including on this specific issue of unemployment, which remains stubbornly high.