Balaam: I’m not in Cabinet to recruit youths into PLU
The newly-appointed State Minister for Youth and Children affairs, Balaam Barugahara, has said he is not in the Cabinet to recruit young people into the Patriotic League of Uganda (PLU).
PLU is a civic group headed by First Son and new Chief of Defence Forces, Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba.
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Balaam, who serves as the PLU national vice chairperson for western Uganda, was last week appointed in the cabinet and vetted by the Parliament on Monday, raising eyebrows of some observers.
Recently, some observers have suggested that his appointment could be aimed at recruiting the youth into the PLU, a pressure group believed to be mobilising for First Son, Muhoozi’s rumoured pursuit for presidency.
However, addressing journalists shortly after his vetting by the Appointments Committee, Balaam dismissed such claims and instead said he will use his ministerial job to fix challenges affecting the youth.
“I am not in Cabinet to recruit the youths for the MK Project, already the MK Project has over 21 million young people and MK or PLU as you may call it, we aren’t a political party," he said.
"We are a civic organization that is aimed at patriotism, spreading love for the country. It is a very civic organization where I encourage each one of you to join so my being appointed Minister, I have come to fix and address challenges affecting young people,” Balaam added.
He noted that much of his focus will be on skilling of the youths across all the regions of the country in a bid to narrow the unemployment gap.
“And majorly, the young people have four to five challenges, they make 75 percent of the population however, out of the 75 percent , 83 percent of those young people they are unskilled, uneducated and unemployed and of that, only 17 percent are skilled," he said.
"So, my role will be advocating for skilling but we don’t have to skill people for everyone to be skilling for making bricks, chapatti and etc.”
He added: “Each sub-region has its core, Karamoja has minerals, so the youths in Karamoja should be skilled in mining. Bunyoro has oil, our youths in Bunyoro should do more of oil and gas, the youths in Buganda are good coffee farmers.”
