Weekly speaks to Muhammad Waakid Allybocus, a master’s graduate in law who is forced to sell vegetables to make ends meet because of the dearth of employment in the country at present. Allybocus tells us of his struggle and that of his unemployed graduate friends.

For how long have you been without a job?
If you count from my bachelor’s, then nearly two years. I finished my LLB in 2015 and completed my master’s in 2016 from Middlesex University. 

What grades did you get?
For my LLB, I got a 2.2 and for my master’s, I graduated with honours. 

And what have you been doing since you finished your LLM? 
I started looking for a job to apply what I had learned, but I have not been able to get anything. 

What kind of job did you start looking for?
To begin with, I was looking for a job in the legal field, what I had studied for.  There were very few opportunities there, so I started broadening my search to just about anything from management and corporate governance to any profession where I could draw a salary to live on. 

Were you interested in the private or the public sector? 
Both. I applied to the private sector, and some companies did not even bother to acknowledge receipt of my application. I applied to public bodies as well, such as the ICAC that acknowledged that they had got my application, but no interview followed. I learned later that they had filled the position. And let me put it this way: I am at a point where I would happily take a job that could bring me Rs15,000 a month, no matter what sector it is in. 

Did you get any job offers that you were not interested in? 
No. There was a notary who needed a messenger and I went to him for an interview. He said that I was overqualified and he told me that it would be a shame to hire someone with a master’s degree as a messenger. So I didn’t even get that. 

Were you prepared to work as a messenger? 
Yes, of course. 

How much did you pay for your education? 
I paid about Rs600,000 for my bachelor’s and around the same for my master’s, so all in all about Rs1.2 million. 

And what are you doing now? 
Actually, my parents have some sugarcane fields and a vegetable garden, so I am growing vegetables. Eventually I would like to sell my produce to a hotel but that is not easy either so, for the time being, my father has a friend who buys the bulk of it off me. I have been planting chillies and tomatoes, but that’s off season right now. I am still learning the trade from my father. I am not very good at it. Besides, it’s very hard to get a place to sell the vegetables so I am supplying other vegetable sellers who do have those places. 

And do you get a good price for your produce? 
Compared to what they sell it for, I get about half of that, sometimes less. That’s how it goes. 

I understand that in Rivière du Rempart, where you stay, there are quite a few graduates in that situation. Do you know any others in the same boat? 
Yes, actually. A friend of mine has come back after studying to be a dentist. He’s now in the same position that I am in. No job, no training, nothing. 

How do you feel about this whole situation? 
It’s a mixture of frustration and helplessness. Its eats you inside; you feel useless and your parents who paid for your studies have some expectations and you are letting them, as well as yourself, down. 

What is the outlook? 
In my sector I don’t see any changes in the near future at least. I just don’t see it. 

What should be done for graduates like you to be employed? 
Well, wherever you go to look for a job, they want experience. But if you are not hired anywhere, how will you get that experience? So I think companies should be incentivised to hire people who don’t have any experience, just to get them started. 

Isn’t that what the Youth Employment Programme (YEP) is supposed to do? Did you try that? 
I tried there too. When I was doing my master’s, I got a three-month legal training from Engen. I was paid by the YEP and after that my training ended. Then I registered at the employment office, they said that they would notify me of any job opening, and it’s been a year now, nothing. 

How does the YEP work? 
They provide incentives to companies by paying Rs10,000 to a company to employ you for six months. The company can choose to pay you above that if they choose. After that, if the employer is pleased, he can hire you and then the company starts paying you. 

If Engen did not offer you a positon after the six-month training, does that mean that it was not satisfied with your performance? 
No. As a matter of fact, they were very happy with my work. But they had hired me for a specific legal assignment. As soon as that was over, there was no opening left. 

When you started studying law, did you not know that the profession was saturated? 
The profession of barrister is saturated, certainly, but with the expansion of foreign companies setting up shop here, there were jobs for legal advisers, financial advisers and so on which you could get with a legal background. But a lot of these companies closed down when the Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement (DTAA) treaty with India was changed. They no longer had any financial benefits in the long term, so they simply moved on. When I finished my degree, the market was saturated with barristers and not a lot of foreign companies had remained. 

The former minister of financial services, Roshi Bhadain, says that the DTAA amendment did not hurt Mauritius… 
I beg to differ. I am no expert in that field, but I do know friends who lost their jobs when the treaty was changed. It did hurt us and it certainly will continue to hurt us for a long time to come. 

One of your friends studied to be a dentist, but has no job yet, what about the others? 
Some of my former classmates did get jobs that they settled for. They were not exactly the jobs of their dreams but they were happy to have a job at all. They obtained these either in the public sector through their own networks or in private companies. But many were not that lucky and are still waiting at home. Many have gone back to university to study in another field. They have spent a lot of money, but there is no guarantee that they will get a job. 

What do you plan to do? Carry on with vegetable planting? 
I do not have a long-term plan. I still live in the hope that one day I will get that phone call which promises to take me away from selling vegetables. In the meantime, I find it terribly frustrating to see people with no real qualifications getting so much money just because they are close to or related to members of the government. I am not asking for a Rs100,000 salary; I would be happy to get Rs20,000 or even Rs10,000. I really don’t think any of this is justified. The money the government is spending on political appointees could be better spent I think. 

What could they do with the money? 
For a start, they could create jobs for the hundreds of graduates who are waiting at home. What future is there for us? 

Have you tried emigrating?
I thought about emigrating but what is keeping me here is my parents. They are both retired and surviving on a pension. I am an only child. I don’t want to leave them to fend for themselves at their age. So I don’t know what to do. 

If somebody in authority is reading this interview, what is the message you want to send? 
That the younger generation is getting really fed up and that this can explode at any time. Maybe it’s time to listen to the young people in this country before it is too late. 

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