Uproar greets new NYS plan to empower youths

Proposed reforms in the National Youth Service have raised a storm after experts who came up with them recommended creative but controversial methods of empowering thousands of young people.

The reforms proposed by a firm where political strategist Mutahi Ngunyi works propose adoption of a method called Amani Sasa that Mungiki members apparently use to raise millions through extortion.

Kenyans on social media reacted angrily to the proposed changes when they were posted on the Devolution ministry’s website, forcing it to take them down on Wednesday.

The reforms seem aimed at organising thousands of young people across the country to serve the nation in various sectors, including security, specifically the Nyumba Kumi initiative. They will need to save part of the payment in groups that will qualify them to get government loans.

Mr Ngunyi yesterday defended the changes he said former NYS Director-General Jaspher Rugut instituted.

Devolution Cabinet Secretary Anne Waiguru’s transfer of Mr Rugut from the NYS has led to calls for her impeachment.

Mr Ngunyi said his expertise in the security field was evident due to the work he has done at the National Intelligence Service.

“I am a serious security expert; we drafted the law for the NIS. I now work with a top general, a brigadier, three professors and lawyers who have drafted this ambitious structure that will transform the NYS,” he said and denied claims he was paid Sh40 million. It is the Devolution ministry that can disclose how much was paid for the consultancy, he said.

“I have no idea how much the company was paid. If you want those answers, ask the principal secretary in Devolution,” he said.

The strategy involves recruitment of 21,870 youths to the NYS yearly, up from the current 2,000. The youths will need to save part of the pay for work to form a seed fund that will ultimately be used to access loans.

Through NYS work camps, the 21,870 annual recruits regimented into squads of 15 will make a mandatory contribution of Sh100 per day to accumulate Sh111,000 after an average of 74 days of service. The contribution will be used to get a loan three times the amount either from a cooperative or Uwezo Fund or even a matching grant from the parent ministry.

“This is enough to buy two brand new motor cycles for the squad of 15. This is how Mungiki does it through Amani Sasa,” the document says.

Asked for comment, Ms Waiguru said the strategy will create opportunities for government to counter strategies vigilante groups use to recruit and radicalise Kenyan youth.

“It is not lost to Government that we are competing with Machiavellian organisations with sinister motives to win back our youth for national development and stability.

“Government must and will do everything possible to ensure that we as a government offer the best constructive alternative for our young people. It is imperative that we understand what these groups do to attract and ensnare our youth so that we can develop counter measures that are relevant and effective,” she said.

The NYS recruits will be expected to “disciple” another 227,670 for a year. This group will then serve the country for between four to six months as paid labour under the supervision of the 21,870.

The document does not say how those to be “discipled” will be identified but says after the service, the 227, disciples will be organised under what the document terms “four principles of social movements-regimentation, rituals of bonding, livelihoods and identity and significance”.

The squads of 15 will then be linked to the Nyumba Kumi initiative as well as Uwezo and the Kenya Youth Enterprise Development Fund in an unclear arrangement.

“Borrow (sic) from the Mugudugudu model in Rwanda or the Kebele model in Ethiopia to involve the youth in Manyumba Kumi. This will be a significant score”, the document notes.

The Kebele (Amharic for neighbourhood) system is an administration and control system in urban Ethiopia.

The 227,670 youths will be “regimented” into 323 squads of youths per county, meaning, there will be 4,845 youths in each county who will have graduated from the programme.

The NYS recruits are also expected to create what is being referred to as “Huduma Corps” of 10,935. The service will be reorganised in nine units with service men and women posted to work under these units as part of service to the nation.

They include integrated dam construction units (2,250), road construction units (6,345), Vector control units (3,645), slums civil works and public environment units ( 1,215), Huduma kitchens units (840), Traffic control units (1,215), public security units (1,280) and agriculture units (6,075).