Make KKV a matter of priority, say Coast youth lobby groups

KKV

JANUARY 8, 2010

BY EUGENE OMILO

A lobby group at the Coast has called on the government to consider releasing the second phase of Kazi Kwa Vijana funds as a matter of priority. 

Coast Youth Leaders Network (Coyolen) has said young people in the region felt sidelined after president Kibaki failed to mention the KKV programme as a top agenda in his New Year message to the nation.

 Coyolen coordinator Dimka Matano said the government should make the initiative a permanent project where youths will be benefitting from the various job opportunities in government ministries and parastatals on a routine basis instead of the current state where it is carried out in phases.

“We fear this programme will end up like other white elephant projects because there are many lapses in the system used to implement it,” said Matano.

He said the Office of the Prime minister should be devolved up to divisional level so that it can supervise KKV projects from grassroots level.

“We are also giving the government a new target of creating 10,000 permanent jobs annually since the economy's performance  will make it hard for the realization of the  300,000 jobs promised during campaigns.

Coyolen’s Secretary for Youth Affairs Daniel Kenga said emphasis in the second phase of the programme should be placed in projects that will be more beneficial to the society like Agriculture as opposed to beautification of towns.

“Cleaning of towns and digging up trenches should be routine work done by employees in local authorities, KKV should be directed to more viable projects that can benefit the whole society,” said Kenga.

The youths said a secretariat should be put in place to oversee recruitment of youths in fair way as currently the exercise has loopholes for favouritism.

The two said the organization is planning to bring together over 500 youth leaders from the region to discuss issues affecting them.

During the first phase of the project, Coast province benefited by sh 237 million which saw a total of 12,521 youths employed.

The work they did was mostly garbage collection, opening up trenches, tree planting and town beautification.

ENDS…