Government unveils Sh15b competition kitty targeting youth

Trade Cabinet Secretary Peter Munya has unveiled a Sh15 billion business competition kitty dubbed MbeleNaBiz [File, Standard]

Trade and Industrialisation Cabinet Secretary Peter Munya has unveiled a Sh15 billion business competition kitty with a stern warning against favoritism.

Munya said that he expected the process of determining the 750 winners in the MbeleNaBiz National Youth Business Competition would be transparent and professional.

“We don’t expect any funny games,” said Munya of the selection process of the competition of the initiative that the Government hopes will help dent the youth unemployment crisis in the country.

The implementation of the project is being done by audit firm KPMG.

500 of the successful applicants will each receive Sh900,000 while the remaining 250 will get Sh3.6 million.

The World Bank, the main financiers of the initiative, insisted the process would go through a “rigorous” impact evaluation with the selected businesses evaluated on a regular basis.

World Bank Country Director for Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda and Somalia Felipe Jaramillo, said in Nigeria, where they had undertaken a similar project, evaluation of the initiative showed that winning businesses had been able to employ an average nine workers in three years compared to less than half of this for those who not received the financing.

The aim of the project is to expand new and existing youth-led enterprises by providing them with funding and business plan training.

The project, according to Jaramillo, does not target youth unemployment directly but through entrepreneurship.

Official figures show more than 85 per cent of those who are unemployed in the country are aged below 35 years, the age category that the competition targets.

The largest unemployment rate- strictly defined as those not working, available and looking for work- is in the age category of between and 20 and 24 years, at 19.2 per cent compared the national unemployment rate of seven per cent.

Another report by the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) indicated that eight out of 10 small-scaled businesses die in their fifth birthday.