Fund launches guarantee scheme for youth groups

Vetting process
Transparency of the tendering process to ensure that the contracts are awarded strictly to the youth is also another challenge that has emerged.

To this end, Kinuthia Murugu permanent secretary Youth Affairs Ministry said the Fund will vet all youth enterprises and enlist them in national and district directories. The Youth entrepreneurs will be awarded certificates which they have to attach when tendering for public contracts.

The directories will also ease the verifying process of the public bodies issuing the tenders.

So far, slightly more that 300 youth entrepreneurs have forwarded their company profiles to the Youth Fund for compilation in the directory which targets at least 1,000 entries.

The ministry is currently lobbying to have the 10 per cent youth contract tendering decree entrenched in the Public Procurement Act in an effort to mitigate the high rate of youth unemployment in the country.

The Kazi Kwa Vijana initiative, the latest effort to curb youth unemployment through recruitment in infrastructure projects, has also been promised Sh23 billion.

It aims to create 300,000 jobs in six months.

So far the Youth Fund has disbursed a total of Sh1.9 billion. But owing to the financial hiccup that Treasury is facing, the youth fund expects their Sh 1 billion budget to be slashed by half.