Recruitment of 5,000 youth for Phase II of the Kazi Mtaani to kick off in Thika West

Thika West Sub-County hopes to get about 5,000 more slots in second phase of the "Kazi Mtaani" Programme that will be officially launched by President Uhuru Kenyatta next month.

The new recruits will join the 1,505 youth already working under the first phase of the initiative that was introduced by the government to help the youth mitigate the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

This was revealed during a stakeholders' meeting on Wednesday that was co-chaired by the Thika West DCC Douglas Mutai and the area MP Eng. Patrick Wainaina.

The recruitment will be done across all the wards with very strict guidelines to ensure transparency and fairness in the selection process.

Speaking during the meeting, MP Wainaina acknowledged the sensitive nature of the exercise, as youth in virtually all the areas were very needy.

“This is a very emotive issue and must be handled with utmost care. Bwana DCC, I appreciate this gesture. Bringing all the stakeholders on board will ensure almost all needy cases benefit from this programme,” he said.

Wainaina promised to facilitate the committees involved in the identification and registration of the bonafide youth with the necessary logistics to ensure that everything went on smoothly. 

The DCC on his part explained that the process of registration would be done in three stages to ensure accountability and transparency in the whole exercise.

“At the grassroots, we will have the Nyumba Kumi Cluster Committee chaired by the cluster chairpersons. This will be the committee that vets all applicants to ensure that they belong to the said settlement,” explained Mutai.

He added that for any youth to be eligible for recruitment, they must produce their ID Cards and indicate the clusters they resided in.

“They should also clearly indicate the nature of skills they have as we are bound to expand the kind of jobs to be done to include skilled labour in the second phase,” he pointed out.

After this stage, the lists will be handed over to the Sub-Location Verification and Validation Committee chaired by the Assistant Chief whose responsibility would be to authenticate the list and verify the identities of those listed. Once that is done, the Assistant Chief will publicise the approved names on the Chief's notice board.

The DCC will then receive these lists and chair a Sub-County Verification and Validation Committee where the final list from all the sub-locations will be prepared. 

The MP and other area leaders are members in this committee but they all have representation in the previous two committees.

Present at the meeting were MCAs Andrew Kimani (Township) and Raphael Chege Waithumbi (Kamenu). Hospital Ward MCA was represented by his Personal Assistant Stephen Mugoro.

Others present included opinion leaders drawn from various interest groups such the Chairman Thika District Business Association (TDBA) Alfred Wanyoike, Madam Gladys Chania, Aboo Norein, Ward Admins representing the three wards, among others.