State House Comptroller, Jane Barekye has said presidential initiatives which include skilling of young people has greatly helped in reducing criminality in the city.
She made the remarks while appearing on NBS SpotlightUg Show that aired on March 29 under the topic. Economic Development: How the Presidential Initiatives can promote growth, job creation, and prosperity.
Some of the presidential initiatives under the State House include poverty alleviation, operation wealth creation, skilling of youth,presidential model farms among others.
Barekye explained the skilling programme took in the drug addicts, those who were languishing on the streets among others ,an initiative that helped them to become better Ugandans.
She said some of these young people were able to create jobs and drop some bad habits.
“We are skilling so many youths.We skill them in welding, carpentry, tailoring, hair dressing, construction among many hand skills,” she said.
Barekye said that over 30,000 young people have so far been trained in different skills under the presidential initiatives and economic development programme.
She said many young people are actively participating in the programmes put forward by the government which has enabled the creation of thousands of jobs for this group of people.
Recently,3,000 youth turned up to be registered into a presidential skilling centre in Wabigalo, but unfortunately, only 700 could be taken, given the center’s capacity.
This shows how young people are willingly embracing these skilling programmes.
Barekye said each presidential skilling hub has the capacity of taking 240 learners per intake which is done twice in a year.
There are 19 Presidential Skilling Hubs around the country, with 9 in Kampala, 10 distributed in other regions and more are yet to come.
Since the Kampala skilling centres began in 2018, Barekye said there are almost 40,000 young people that have benefited from these skilling centres.
“The age bracket of the beneficiaries is between 18 to 35 years old. The selection is done irrespective of educational background, religion, region and sex provided the skill one to take is in relation to his or her interest,” she said.
“We have seen these skilling centres attract a lot of demand and if they reflect these developed countries, industrialisation was started by skilling. They skilled their population so that by the time they went industrial, they had the capacity of people to put into these industries, ”she said.
She noted that the economy can not only grow through formal education but also skilled persons.
She said the demand for the skilling centers is overwhelming.
This, she said is good for the country because that shows that the initiative by the President is really doing well and is impacting the lives of the people.
“There are massive benefits that the country is getting from the presidential initiatives, and I encourage every stakeholder out there to support them.If you reflect on these developed countries, industrialisation was started by skilling,”she said.
The Special Presidential Assistant Lydia Balemezi,said model villages were set up to be examples that people can emulate. These help people to go and learn what is being done.
“In 2022, we came up with an additional 14 model villages as a recommendation from Parliament. As of now, we have handled seven of them. We hope by the next of the financial year, we would have covered all 14,”she said.