The Head of State revealed that he had listened to Kenyans and promised that the programme would resume next week.
President William Ruto on Monday, July 15 announced the return of Kazi Mtaani, a programme he disbanded two years ago after it was started by his predecessor, Uhuru Kenyatta.
Speaking in Nakuru County during the inspection of Nakuru Bus Park, the Head of State revealed that he had listened to Kenyans and promised that the programme would resume next week.
“There are ladies here who have told me they want Kazi Mtaani. I have said in that Kazi Mtaani programme, 500 people will be working here starting next week as we ensure many youths get employment opportunities,” Ruto told Nakuru residents.
“This is so that we can make sure more young people can get employment opportunities.”
Youths working under the Kazi Mtaani program. /FILE
The programme, which was the brainchild of Uhuru, was done away with in October 2022 by President Ruto, who vowed to include the youth to contribute towards the realisation of affordable housing projects in the country.
“Kazi Mtaani is outdated now, the work of collecting trash is a no. The work now is building these houses and the first people to get jobs in this project will be from Kibra,” he said then, adding that the number of youths being employed under the kazi mtaani program was not adequate.
Ruto argued that he would empower the Juakali industry by scrapping the Kazi Mtaani program. The industry would contribute to the windows and doors made courtesy of it which would be retrofitted into the thousands of homes the government aims to construct under the affordable housing program.
Uhuru unveiled the program in 2020, which was meant to provide social protection for workers whose prospects for daily or casual work had been disrupted by the containment policies put in place to limit the spread of COVID-19.
Through the initiative, residents were recruited to undertake projects concentrated in and around informal settlements with the aim of improving the environment, service delivery and providing income generation opportunities.
The workers were divided into groups or cohorts and an individual earned Ksh450 per day for eleven days each, while their supervisors earned Ksh505 per day for 22 days in a month.
President William Ruto did not make it immediately clear if the Kazi Mtaani initiative would be rolled out in other parts of the country or if it would be restricted to Nakuru Town.
Before making the political declaration, Ruto’s administration had not yet prepared a policy or budget allocation for the program, which is expected to complement other initiatives rolled out by the Kenya Kwanza administration to eliminate unemployment in the country.
They include and not limited to; digital job creation, human labour export and affordable housing programmes.
