Why Tanzania needs a youth start up policy: TPSF

Dar es Salaam. For Tanzania to curb the unemployment crisis among youth, it should introduce a Youth Startup Policyto enable young people open up new businesses with ease, said a private business advocacy organization Tanzania Private Sector Foundation (TPSF).

Neighboring countries in the East African bloc, such as Kenya and Uganda have introduced the policy and enabled the youth to open up successful companies, said TPSF Executive Director Mr Godfrey Simbeye.

Mr Simbeye was on Saturday November 2,presenting a paper on the steps that TPSF has taken toaddress the unemployment crisis in the country, during a dialogue on Employability and Tanzania’sIndustrialization plan, organized by VivaLegacy Training and Consultancy.

"…as the private sector, we think is the high time the government looked into the possibility of introducing the policy in order to cut down the growing number of job seekers," said the TPSF executive director Godfrey Simbeye.

Explained further, he said TPSF is in talks with the government in order to see how the policy can be introduced.

He said the government is only providing around 500,000 employment chances per year the remaining go to the private sector.

"We want youth to think about startupsand new businesses instead of waiting to be employed because both government and private sector cannot employ all," he noted.

"For example, for a person opening up a company in Tanzania, there are many roadblocks. After getting Tax Identification Number, an investor has to start paying tax on the following day. Where will such young people get money while the company is still new," he added.

Opening the meeting, deputy permanent secretary in the ministry of Education, Science and Technology DrAvemariaSemakafu said number of youth believe that employment is only available in the government.

"We want to change this mindset among youth so that instead of thinking too much about employment should self employed by starting new business," She said

Speaking at the event, VivaLegacy Training and Consultancy Managing Director Fortunata Temu said number of researches have been conducted on unemployment among the youth and the only remaining thing was action.

"That’s why we’ve invited various people here; so that we can point out all the challenges and find a way forwardon solving the unemployment crisis," she said