NKURENKURU – Residents of Nkurenkuru are calling on incoming leaders elected in the upcoming election to prioritise permanent employment opportunities over temporary work arrangements that have left many struggling to make ends meet.
Roswitha Haita, a 30-year-old woman who has been voting since 2013, expressed frustration with the current system during an interview with Nampa on Tuesday, ahead of the Regional Councils and Local Authorities Elections held nationwide yesterday.
“We want the people whom we are voting for, councillors and others, to employ people as permanent workers,” Haita said in a recent interview with Nampa.
“We are residents here, but we are just struggling. We only do this casual labour work, they don’t give us jobs,” she said.
Haita criticised the practice of bringing in workers from other villages while residents remain unemployed despite their electoral participation.
“We sometimes don’t have access to information about a certain job for us to apply for, and later on, they are going to tell us that other people from other villages are coming to work in our town, while we are the ones who are even voting for those people,” she said.
She highlighted the plight of local youth, noting that many young people lack employment opportunities despite being willing to work.
Another resident, Salomo Malema, who sells kapana in what he terms unsafe conditions, echoed similar concerns about the need for a better working environment.
“We want whoever is going to be elected as councillors to think about the people who are hustling in the streets and place us in a conducive environment where even if it’s raining, we can still sell our products, not these leaders that just want to feed their stomachs,” Malema said.
He added that the concerns reflect broader frustrations with local leadership’s failure to address unemployment and create sustainable economic opportunities for community members.
As the new council prepares to assume office, residents are demanding concrete action on job creation and better working conditions, rather than continued reliance on temporary employment arrangements.
-Nampa