Treasury sets aside Sh7bn to pay youths, expand Kazi Mtaani

Treasury building. FILE PHOTO | NMG

By JOHN MUTUA
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Summary

• The National Treasury has allocated an additional Sh7 billion for the Kazi Mtaani programme to pay thousands of youth and scale up the initiative to cover affordable housing project.
• The supplementary budget tabled in Parliament on Tuesday shows that Sh1 billion will be used to pay youths who have gone without pay or received partial payments since last year.
• A further Sh6 billion will be channeled to the affordable housing project as the State mulls employing the youth in the project that seeks to deliver half-a-million affordable houses by 2022.

The National Treasury has allocated an additional Sh7 billion for the Kazi Mtaani programme to pay thousands of youth and scale up the initiative to cover affordable housing project.

The supplementary budget tabled in Parliament on Tuesday shows that Sh1 billion will be used to pay youths who have gone without pay or received partial payments since last year.

A further Sh6 billion will be channeled to the affordable housing project as the State mulls employing the youth in the project that seeks to deliver half-a-million affordable houses by 2022.

Thousands of youth have since August last year gone without pay due to a budget shortfall for the project leading to protests among the youth in some of the counties.

The additional funding comes a month after the State extended the programme to end of next month, adding that some of the youth will be absorbed into other projects like the affordable housing programme.

“Sh1 billion is for budget shortfall for Kazi Mtaani programme for payment of youth engaged in the programme,” Treasury Secretary Ukur Yatani says in the budget review.

“Sh6 billion for consolidation of Kazi Mtaani programme under the State department for Housing and Urban Development.”

Kazi Mtaani started in April last year with an initial budget of Sh10 billion as an economic stimulus offering thousands of youth casual jobs amid the Covid-19 pandemic that led to millions of job losses.

Some 280, 000 youths are employed under the programme in 900 informal settlements across the 47 counties.

The programme include cleaning drainage lines, garbage collection, cleaning streets, growing trees and rehabilitation of public facilities.

Each youth is paid Sh560 million per month while each supervisor takes home Sh505, according to the State Department of Housing and Urban Development.

The project started off as an employer for casual workers who were left jobless due to the Covid-19 containment measures such as the ban on social gatherings and the dusk-to-dawn curfew effected in March last year.