Opposition parliamentarian Steven Kamwendo has asked Labour Minister Eunice Makangala to resign for feeding the nation with lies about labour exports to South Korea.
Kamwendo, in an interview on Tuesday, said Makangala failed in her duties by giving false hopes to the youth before establishing the truth about the whole issue.
“When we asked for fine details regarding this labour export deal in Parliament, the Minister [Makangala] teamed up with the Minister of Youth [Enock Chihana] and blasted us, saying we were merely jealousy.
“But it’s now clear that the whole South Korea labour export was mere rhetoric if not even a hoax. The only honourable thing she can do now is to resign or at least apologise to the nation,” Kamwendo said.
The Minister could not be reached on her mobile phone yesterday to comment on the development. Makangala made headlines this year about the labour export deal, saying it would ease Malawi’s high levels of unemployment.
She further said sending the youth to work abroad would also help them earn a living and gain expertise to develop the country. At least 100,000 youths were expected to benefit from the said deal.
And published reports indicate that at least 15,000 youth applied to be considered for the programme but just over 300 were shortlisted as a first lot for South Korea.
It was further reported that the youths would be getting about US$1000 per month, which was quite substantial in a country where most civil servants and other workers earn less than US$200 a month.
The South Korean Government, however, denied entering into a pact with the Malawi Government to allow up to 100,000 people work in the country.
“Our government has not received any official request from Malawi that they want to send their workers to our country,” Moon Sung Hwan, director at the Africa Division of South Korea’s foreign affairs ministry in Seoul, told Bloomberg.
At this point, Principal Secretary in the Ministry of Labour, admitted that there was no deal yet as the Malawi Government had only applied for the same to South Korea. – Reported by Simeon Maganga
