Is the Youth Enterprise Fund really meeting its objectives?

For the last ten years, youth have been the platform on which politicians have played their dangerous games of control and power, feeding on scraps thrown at them by the political class.

One initiative that was touted as a source of opportunity during this time is the Youth Enterprise Fund.

Since inception, no statistics have been released of how many jobs have been created, or how many firms have grown from nothing to something because of the Fund.

We do not know how many of these jobs are permanent, how many casual. There is no statistical evidence concerning exactly how much of the money given out has been repaid, and at what interest rate. It is not possible to find this information from the Fund's latest progress report.

To me, it's like a worm-hole that has been benefiting the connected. It has failed in its key mandate, which is to grow entrepreneurship in the country.

By now I would have expected to see empirical evidence ‎on the growth of youth SMEs, in terms of how many per district or per sector, and how many businesses are individually owned or group owned.

SEEMINGLY RUDDERLESS

Growth of any firm, fund or project heavily depends on it learning its first key lessons after inception. However, the Youth Enterprise Fund seems to be running rudderless.

This is not only dangerous, but the very essence of corruption, given that the money used comes from public funds.

The dismissal of Gor Selemang’o and his replacement with Bruce Odhiambo seems to confirm that the position of the Chairman is political. This raises accountability issues given that the holder of the office will ostensibly be serving the interests of his or her appointing authority and not the youth as should be the case. The fact that the position apparently has no security of tenure makes independent decision-making difficult

The fund has the chance to reduce youth unemployment and under-employment, and inject much-needed support for entrepreneurial ventures in key sectors like manufacturing, agriculture and support service industries, creating an additional two million jobs annually, all permanent.

But are those in charge aware of this? Do they even care, or is the Fund just a carrot to dangle before the youth when the political class needs them to run around throwing stones at their opponents?

Twitter: @SokoAnalyst