Uasin Gishu County Commissioner Abdirisack Jaldesa has dismissed reports by a section of the press that youths recruited for Kazi Mtaani programme in the county demonstrated over nonpayment of their dues.
Jaldesa clarified that no demonstration had taken place, neither had money meant to pay the youths for Kazi Mtaani gone missing as alleged.
Addressing the press in his office Wednesday, the county commissioner said the youths were progressing fine adding the county has an implementation committee that follows up on youth engagements in the programme.
He further clarified that the payments made this week were meant for the first week that the youths started working, “in some of the estates where work started during the launch on July 10th, the youths will be paid for five days, those who started on Wednesday will be paid for three days while those who started on Thursday due to delays in registration and verification of their data will be paid for the two days they worked during that week”.
He said the first cohort will be paid for 11 days and each youth will be paid for the number of days they worked. “This is not a joke, the government is paying the youths for work done, they are logged in and logged out by their supervisors for each day they work, and they will be paid for actual days worked through their mobile phones,” stressed Jaldesa.
Jaldesa took issue with a Journalist working for one of the local TV stations saying he has always been reporting negative information without seeking clarification from relevant government offices.
“There are those who have been opposed to the Kazi Mtaani programme since the beginning and have been using the one journalist to propagate their agenda, the same reporter is also on record claiming that the 8003 youths who were employed in the Kazi Mtaani project bribed their way in, which is not true,” said the CC.
“When we launched the exercise, we had all the leaders from the county and none of them complained on the recruitment process or any incident of a youth who bribed to be recruited,” said Jaldesa.
He added that the same reporter collected a few individuals in Langas to go against the government’s directive on curfew when the President announced the country will be on curfew from 7pm to 6am in an effort to combat Covid-19 spread.
“Today he collected some youths whom we are not even certain were in the Kazi Mtaani programme and he instigated them to do some kind of demonstration to paint the project in bad light, it’s unfortunate for a reporter in such a respected media outlet to propagate lies and unclarified information, and the claims should be dismissed with the contempt it deserves by the residents of Uasin Gishu,” he said.
In a Live report Wednesday morning the media house claimed the youths had demonstrated to protest against being underpaid, alleging some were paid only Sh. 90.
The recruited youths are paid Sh. 455 for each day worked while the supervisors are paid Sh. 505 per day.
By Kiptanui Cherono
