A section of youths from Changamwe, Mombasa County took to the streets to demonstrate to the Deputy County commissioner’s office alleging that they were left out during the ongoing Kazi Mtaani program recruitment.
The youths stated that government directives were clear that the youths who participated in the last Kazi Mtaani program were to be given the priority yet they were left out of the recruitment process.
They said that Mombasa regional Commander had promised that the youths who worked in the last Kazi Mtaani program will be recruited to continue working but that didn’t happen as they have seen newly recruited people who have already started working.
“We worked last year during Kazi Mtaani and now those of us who were recruited in the last exercise are not working and our cry is that why should they decide to pick other people yet we are available to continue with the work. The regional commander had clearly stated that we will be recruited but the County Commissioner together with the Deputy County Commissioner of Mombasa choose to ignore us,” Rehema Abdi a youth from Mombasa lamented.
The youths also alleged that they were also told to start working as they were guaranteed the job, having worked for three days, new people were brought to start working hence being denied payments.
“The names have been taken to the county commissioner and our names are not appearing there, we have worked for three days without payment and now they want to block us and when we start demonstrating for what is right they send police to scare us away. We want the exercise to be revisited,” another youth stated.
However, the Deputy County Commissioner of Changamwe Michael Yator called upon the youths not to continue demonstrating because the exercise is still ongoing and that they will ensure that their interests are well taken care of.
“We were planning to employ 3,443 youths in the exercise and only 591 youths have been verified by the system and dispersed to start working as the first cohort. The remaining number will also be recruited cohort after cohort and thus they should stop being worried. The youths are lamenting that we have already picked all the people but that is not the case and we had already told them that we will consider them but it seems that they didn’t listen to what we told them when we met them,” he said.
The Deputy County commissioner further warned them against organizing demonstrations saying that they might ruin or interfere with the whole program and the government may scrap it from the region. He added that last time they came and locked his offices and that should not happen again. Police were forced to disperse the youths out of the deputy county commissioner’s office.
