Unemployment is not just a provincial problem but a national problem faced by every citizen living in South Africa. Most people are jobless, from those with qualifications to those less fortunate which comes down to the question ‘’What went wrong?’’ Instead of the unemployment rate decreasing it only is increase which is frustrating and makes one ask where this country is heading.
There might have been many strategies introduced to decrease poverty which was the result of high unemployment, to name one ‘’Vukuzenzele’’. It has failed dismally, people are still suffering.
To less privileged provinces like the Eastern Cape unemployment makes the youth question their future as South African citizens. It is by no doubt that Eastern Cape comes last in everything which is why I ask myself is that the case. Is it because we as the community members lazy or is it our officials that are lazy? Why does everything in Eastern Cape fail? Do we fail because we are lazy or is it because we have no resources? Whether those are the cases or not something should be done to alleviate the problems that are in Eastern Cape.
Are socio-economic factors the real problem? With unemployment increasing, crime is also increasing, people have no jobs, no money or food resulting to some running to crime, robbery to be precise as a source of income. It has also resulted to high HIV/AIDS rates which has caused many deaths because this is said to be a killer disease.
Why are Eastern Cape resources not taken care of? Why are they not maintained? There are factories infact, there were factories in Dimbaza between King Williams Town and Alice. Those factories are no more, many have closed down leaving two working and the rest is history. If you would go to Dimbaza you would see that these are just old buildings because they have been ripped off by the community. They have taken all the materials from bricks, zincs, toilet seats, infact all the housing and building materials. Simply because these buildings were left alone with no work. After the shutting down of these factories which were the highest job creators in Eastern Cape. They are now old buildings, because they were not maintained after being shut down which should have never happened in the first place.
Unemployment is drastically increasing and so is the population which will soon result in poverty. Eastern Cape has a high population and it contributes less in the GDP of the country. The only form of employment which seems to be increasing is the informal trading which does not contribute to the GDP but it is something, its better than sitting around doing nothing.
It is the reason to the strikes by students at tertiary institutions that are always on because unemployment results to no money, no money results to students no able to go to school because NSFAS does not loan everyone, it takes a certain percentage. Which is why I keep asking myself the question. What can be done to deal with this frustrating problem we find ourselves in?
