KAZI KWA VIJANA

12 million youths employed under the Kazi Kwa Vijana Programme face unemployment after the government stopped funding the program.

Prime Minister Raila Odinga informed parliament on Wednesday that failure by government to allocate the programme funds in the current financial year had made it virtually impossible for the program to run effectively.

The programme launched in March last year by President Mwai Kibaki was meant to create employment for more than 300,000 young people countrywide.

Issuing a statement on the status of the economic stimulus package, the PM admitted that the stimulus plan had failed to jumpstart the economy as envisaged.

So far only 4.5 billion shillings has been released by Treasury towards boosting the stimulus package against an allocation of 30 billion shillings with only 3 months left to the end of the current financial year.

He says lack of funding by Treasury to the various sectors of the economy charged with implementation of the package has been slow.

He said it was difficult for the government to implement its development agenda to aggressively inject funds into the economy to forestall the impact of the economic downturn.

He however assured parliament that the government intends to roll out the economic stimulus program to the next financial year inorder to kick start the economy.