Streamline youth project

What you need to know:

  • Also benefiting from the Sh10 billion programme are the young people in the rural areas.
  • We hope that there have been useful lessons from the first lot that covered 1,000 settlements across the country.

One of the most promising government initiatives in the campaign against the Covid-19 pandemic is a youth employment project. Dubbed Kazi Mtaani, the national hygiene programme seeks to involve young people in clean-up efforts to enhance sanitation in their neighbourhoods. In the towns, the main target areas are the slums, where pollution poses a grave threat to the people.

The programme, in which youth earn some money to put food on the table for their families, could not have come at a better time. The acute unemployment in the informal settlements has been aggravated by youth being laid off by businesses and other organisations reeling under the adverse consequences of the pandemic.

Getting hordes of idle young people gainfully engaged is insurance against a crime explosion.

Also benefiting from the Sh10 billion programme are the young people in the rural areas.

This initiative is a source of short-term jobs that should help to alleviate the suffering of a people battered by the new scourge.

It is, therefore, quite disappointing that the objectives of Kazi Mtaani are not being fully achieved due to logistical challenges. It is a shame that youth, who have enthusiastically enrolled for the jobs, go for a long time without pay and have to resort to protests to demand it. For instance, the first phase is over but the workers are still waiting for their dues.

There is a need to streamline the programme to achieve the set goals. It should be reorganised to enable the assessment to improve the performance of the project managers and recruits.

We hope that there have been useful lessons from the first lot that covered 1,000 settlements across the country.

There is no reason why this ad hoc arrangement cannot be eventually turned into permanent jobs for youth.