Nkhotakota District Youth Officer Under Panic as Youths Demand his Removal

Youths in Nkhotakota district have given the district council a 7 day ultimatum to remove the controversial District Youth Officer (DYO) Oscar Mulenga from the district saying he has failed the youths in the district.

The youths represented by all 10 youth networks in the district presented their petition after a peaceful demostration which started with a solidarity walk from Medical Fund offices in the district to the District council offices to the district’s Human Resource Officer Geofrey Mkandawire on Wednesday morning this week.

Among others in the petition the youths accused the DYO to have been sexually harassing girls, demanding money from the youths in exchange of youth meetings opportunities and failure to coordinate youth programmes that he has no direct benefit from it.

Speaking on behalf of the youths Steve Kantande, said the DYO has failed the youths in so many ways with nothing to point out on development over the past 3 years he has been working in the district and that attempts to have their concerns addressed through dialogue meetings with him yield nothing.

Speaking after receiving the petition Mkandawire said his office will forward the petition to the responsible authorities in the Ministry of Youth, Sports, Labour and Manpower Development and promised to look into the issue.

However responding on the petition Mulenga challenged the youths for their action saying he is not elected member hence the communities are not entitled to fire him.

Meanwhile the youths vowed to take unspecified action against the DYO if the government will fail to meet their demands in a given space of time.

Mulenga was deployed as a district youth officer for Nkhotakota in 2015