Tuju queries efficacy of youth employment

A former minister has questioned the efficiency of the Kazi Kwa Vijana (jobs for youth) programme in tackling youth unemployment.

Speaking in Nakuru while attending a peace rally, former Rarieda MP Raphael Tuju said the program was not making use of the intellectual ability of the young people involved in it as it mainly requires mechanical energy.

He added that it also lacked enough funds to run as effectively as it had been anticipated.

“Kazi Kwa Vijana is a desperate attempt to help the youth. We cannot ask them to go for extensive training only to give them hoes and machetes to work in the fields. It is time we recognised that our future lies in industrialisation, services and Information Technology, not slashers,” he said.

According to Mr Tuju, a high birth rate witnessed between 1975 and 1985 and poor planning by successive governments were to blame for the high number of jobless youth today.

He warned that unless more serious steps are taken to create more opportunities, a large number of Kenyans aged 35 and below were not likely to ever get a job in their lifetime, saying that even the government did not have correct statistics of the unemployed people of Kenya and was almost in denial over the matter.

He urged the communities living in the Rift Valley that had fought during the post poll violence to embrace forgiveness and move ahead, adding that instability and tribal animosity were major hindrances to development and asked the youth to be vigilant and avoid being thrown back to war by politicians. He said the major cause of fighting in the province was poverty.

“Let us forgive each other for what happened, but not forget lest we repeat it. Because of retrogressive political competition, a trend is emerging of ethnic ghettos that are voluntarily segregated. Politicians love this trend and at times even encourage it during general elections,” said Mr Tuju.

Mr Tuju, who is now the Chairman of the Kenya Hope Foundation, also handed over to Nakuru County the Torch of Hope.

The torch, which was first lit in Nairobi County, has already been to Nyeri County and will be taken to Eldoret County next. It is used by the organisation to rally Kenyans together in promoting peace.

Speaking at the event, former Subukia MP Koigi Wamwere also accused Kenyans of accepting and protecting perpetrators of tribalism and corruption by voting them into powerful offices adding that the government should review the current economic system to create more opportunities for jobless youth and reduce poverty levels countrywide.