Youth Fund Yes But…

By: Oluoch Japheth Ogollah

[ Posted On: 2007-02-02 ]

The recent launch of The National Youth Enterprise Fund by President Mwai Kibaki of Kenya is a move in the right direction. Governments world over are elected to office on the basis of a specific mandate, to make life better for a majority of her citizens. In order to do this, any responsible government must develop relevant policies and programmes. The youth fund alongside the establishment of the youth ministry is a welcome initiative considering that 60% of Kenyans are youth. This simply means that this government came to power through the power of the youth. Similarly, 60% of the taxes come from the youth if a taxation principle which states that citizens of a country should pat taxes according to their ability to pay holds.

To be able to make another Kenya possible, the government is presented with an obligation to address the plight of youths particularly those living in the slums. The establishment of this fund might be a sure way of implementing the National Youth Policy, which was initially intended to be enacted into a Youth Act. This has however not happened in the last seven years since the policy was first initiated. The fund may also help the government create the five hundred thousand jobs per year, which was one of the major pre-election pledges by the defunct National Rainbow Coalition of Kenya, which sponsored president Kibaki during the last general election in 2002.

Though the idea of a youth fund is fantastic, there are more questions than answers. Governments have the bad habit of coming up with good initiatives but allowing irresponsible political behaviour to make non-sense of them. To be able to keep an eye on the government, citizens of a country ask questions. In progressive societies, which I believe Kenya is, when the electorate question their governments, they should not be dismissed as enemies of the system.

This is not the first time that a government is purporting to introduce a youth fund in this country. Towards the 1997 general elections, the then embattled president Daniel Arap Moi spearheaded two massive fundraising events for youth and women development programmes. Both harambees collected about two billion Kenya shillings.

To date, nobody knows what became of the funds. The Moi dictatorship then was faced with a life-threatening general election it had to win at all cost. He also faced 'No reforms! No Elections' demonstrations organized by human rights organizations and the opposition. To win that year's election, the self-proclaimed professor of politics badly needed youth and women votes. He got them and won the elections comfortably courtesy of a selfish opposition, which then proceeded to dismiss them as rigged.

President Kibaki is today facing a similar situation as his predecessor. The launch of this fund has coincided with an election year, an election that president Kibaki needs to win. Leading political figures who secured him victory in a silver platter during the last general election as he recovered from a fatal accident, which almost caused him his life, have turned into his fiercest critics. They are alleging that the president betrayed them by dismissing a pre-election power sharing memorandum but instead choosing to work with his closest friends, many of whom are in their late seventies and eighties.

For a government that has been in power for four years and has done very little for the youths, one wonders the coincidence that such an attractive programme is introduced in an election year. The Kibaki government is today a replica of a council of elders. Most of the major ministerial and civil service positions are in the hands of his known personal friends and age mates. His youthful diehards are consigned to over-blotted assistant ministerial positions.

A cross section of Kenyans is also worried whether this fund will benefit deserving youths or it will depend on one's connections to powers that be. To be able to give a bit of credibility to this process, the youth ministry must ensure that the funds are disbursed justly. Focus should be given to youths in the slums and rural areas. The management of this fund should be in the hands unbiased ministry officials and not politicians. Kenya has a wrong history of managing devolved funds. Let the youth ministry destabilize this precedent.

Finally, as president Kibaki warned Kenyans not to politicise this fund, I advise the government not to do the same for the forth coming general elections. No political party has the resources to implement development programmes in the country. This responsibility is a reserve of an elected government. The government on the other hand relies largely on the citizens' taxes. Both the opposition and ruling party supporters pay taxes and no single party can take credit for economic recovery.

Article Source: http://www.afroarticles.com/article-dashboard

About The Author: Oluoch Japheth Ogola is a trained accountant and he is currently involved in voluntary human rights and community work in Korogocho Slums Nairobi Kenya. Contact Japheth as follows: Mobile : +254 724 261 751 | Email: japhol2002[at]yahoo.co.uk -- replace [at] with @

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