Bulawayo Bureau
THE Zimbabwe International Exhibition Centre was a hive of activity in Bulawayo yesterday as hundreds of graduates submitted their qualifications for registration with the Public Service Commission (PSC) for employment consideration.
The Government, through the (PSC), is creating a national employment data-base that will be used as pool of employment for filling critical vacancies within public sector across ministries and departments.
The PSC is holding a two day Job Fair in Bulawayo where unemployed graduates have the opportunity to interact with PSC officials over job opportunities in Government and submit their qualifications for potential future employment.
All the 22 Government ministries are participating in the fair and were yesterday overwhelmed by enquiries from youthful graduates who expressed excitement over the programme.
PSC Commissioner, Professor Carrol Themba Kombe, said the inaugural job fair is part of plans to recruit a new crop of qualified civil servants possessing modern professional skills to drive national development.
"Our job is to recruit human capital for the Government and by this fair we are addressing two challenges. The first challenge we are addressing is that most of the workers in the PSC are above 40 years old and because we are in a technological changing world, the new skills and new working models are driven by electronics and new information technology and these are the skills, which the youths have," he said.
"So, we deliberately said let us make the young people interested in Government by coming to a place where they see what Government ministries do and then they can choose their career path.
"We hope this will encourage young people to join Government with their new skills so that as the old retire the Government will become youthful and have the necessary modern skills required to provide services."
Prof Kombe said the job fair was also meant to fulfil devolution requirements by making sure that everyone in the country had equal employment opportunities through being captured on the national database.
He said this was critical as the database had become more centralised with more people from Harare and Bulawayo.
"We were more centralised around Harare and Bulawayo so we took the decision to go to all the provinces. We started in Harare last year and captured a number of young people some of whom we are already employing who came to the job fair," he said.
"So, we came to Bulawayo to identify the skills we have so that when we start recruiting we have a database of people who come from this region. From here, we will do other provinces so that we look at people one-on-one so that we are able to advise them correctly looking at their qualifications," said Prof Kombe.
PSC head of human capital agency, Mr Walter Mpandawana, said there were several critical vacancies within Government ministries, which the youth can exploit if they possess the required qualifications. He said several ministries have unfilled vacancies that the PSC is trying to bridge.
"We actually conducted an exercise with our team in the provinces of Bulawayo and the two Matabeleland provinces. We have indications that we have vacancies that require economists in the Ministry of Women Affairs as development officers," he said.
"In the Ministry of Energy and Power Development, we require energy conservation officers. We also have vacancies in the field of meteorology.
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"We also require science teachers in the education ministry, veterinary doctors in the animal husbandry field, engineers and architects for Local Government and National Housing Ministry and those who possess real estate qualifications."
Mr Mpandawana said some of the graduates who submitted the papers possess qualifications needed in some of the ministries and they will begin the process to employ them.
A hopeful Ms Nokuthula Chakanyuka, who just finished her records management course with the Bulawayo Polytechnic, said the job fair came at the right time.
"It puts me in a good opportunity to get employed because we are also interacting with all Government ministries, which is more like a marketing session for us," she said.
