Jubilee manifesto on job creation for the youth has glaring pigeon holes

Youth in a jobless corner in Nairobi.

By PAUL WAFULA

Kenya: The Jubilee government has pegged most of its hopes of creating one million jobs on a shift in the public procurement policy towards prioritising locally produced goods.

Through an initiative dubbed ‘Buy Kenya, Build Kenya’, the Government hopes to kill the appetite for foreign goods by making it painfully expensive to consume imported goods.

This was made clearer during the reading of its Sh1.6 trillion budget when the Treasury announced plans to re-engineer the public procurement process to play a leading role in creating quality jobs.

It hopes to generate these jobs by growing the manufacturing sector through tax incentives and extending grants to international companies to establish industrial plants in the country to supply the wider East African economy.

“We must stop the culture of importing things we are already producing like cement. Buying local will be key in growing our industries and this will generate new jobs,” Labour Minister Kazungu Kambi told The Standard in an interview.

The Buy Kenya, Build Kenya’ initiative will rope in all government agencies and departments as well as parastatals to jumpstart industrial activity seen as critical in its job creation strategy.

Currently, unemployment is soaring past 54 per cent. The country still runs out of maize, rice, sugar and other essential commodities yearly, and is forced to import.

In our continuing series dubbed ‘Jobless Kenya’, The Standard reported how Kenya is exporting thousands of jobs to Asian countries and South Africa through a self-defeating policy of encouraging importation of things it can comfortably produce.

Home use imports

Official Government data shows that Kenya on average spends Sh100 billion per month on home use imports. This means in a month, Kenya imports goods that can be made locally whose value is enough to employ 210,000 community nurses. 

According to the Jubilee Manifesto, the coalition plans to enhance youth affirmative action on Government procurement to 25 per cent in a bid to allow youth-run enterprises secure government contracts.

“To sustain this, the Coalition government will introduce a policy of purchasing locally manufactured goods and services by making the Public Procurement regime open, transparent and corruption-free in order to ensure that all deserving young entrepreneurs have the opportunity to secure Government tenders,” the manifesto reads in part.

Treasury Cabinet Secretary Henry Rotich has laid the foundation for this policy shift after he increased the proportion of Government tenders to be reserved for youth, women and persons with disability, from 10 per cent to 30 per cent.

The Government will also accord exclusive preferences to local firms that manufacture, assemble, grow, extract or mine goods in priority areas such as construction materials and related supplies, furniture, motor vehicles and foodstuffs as well as cap the time it takes to initiate and award a tender to 30 days.

The manifesto however, does not say the quality of the jobs that it will create.

But the Jubilee government has already reneged on its pledge to commit 2.5 per cent of national revenue annually towards establishing a Youth Enterprise Fund.

In the current financial year, the Government hopes to raise Sh1 trillion, comprising of Shh961.3 billion of ordinary revenue and Sh67 billion of appropriations in aid.

 To meet the 2.5 per cent target, the Government should have set aside at least Sh24 billion instead of the Sh6 billion it has earmarked for the youth. This funding translates to only a quarter of its pledge.

CDF model

The fund is expected to be designed along the Constituency Development Fund (CDF) model.

It will give youth access to interest-free loans either individually or in groups without the requirement of traditional collateral.

Another job creation initiative by President Uhuru Kenyatta’s Government is the establishment of innovation centres to nurture emerging generation of creative Kenyans.

But the success of all these initiatives is anchored on the consistent economic growth.

The Government, largely being run by technocrats is targeting a 7-10 per cent growth rate in its first two years.

It is also looking at stopping employers from dishing out jobs to foreigners where the skills exist. “I plan to bring back the issuance of work permits to my (Labour) ministry to allow the enforcement of a policy that will ensure we only issue work permits for jobs that cannot be sourced locally,” Mr Kambi said.

The Uhuru administration also plans to develop of a policy on internship for all college students requiring practical training with built in incentives for industry actors.

It is hoping that the creation of a reliable energy infrastructure by extending the national grid network and promotion of renewable energy will enable the private sector to invest for growth.

But it would be the implementation of these initiatives that will stand between the policy briefs and actual jobs. “We will encourage a regime that only looks outside Kenya if goods and services cannot be found locally at a reasonable rate,” the campaign manifesto reads in part.

Uhuru’s administration is hoping to enforce a policy where at least 10 per cent of Government procurement is sourced from entities established under the youth enterprise fund.

But the Government is yet to come up with the outline of how many jobs each of these initiatives will deliver. The manifesto also says the Government will transform the Youth Enterprise Development Fund and Kenya Industrial Estates into a new national enterprise agency to be known as Biashara Kenya. It will also give tax holidays to young people to encourage them to initiate start-up businesses.

The Government also plans to develop special Industrial Parks and clusters in the counties that will target young people and women who start small businesses and providing access to electricity, water, capital equipment and clean sanitary environments and improved access roads.

“This will boost growth at the county level and help to stem rural-urban migration, itself a significant strain on Kenya’s major towns,” the Jubilee manifesto reads.

It hopes to equip these investment parks with major capital items required in operating small businesses such as motor mechanics, plumbing, artisans, leather and wood works, carpentry and similar trades.

“We will, for instance, provide tools for technicians and ICT-based enterprises. (We will also be) providing training services and creating market for locally produced goods and services internally, regionally and internationally,” it says adding: “We will promote brand-names of locally manufactured products to boost incomes for promising artisans. More specifically, we will create markets for Jua Kali products, male and female body care products, coffee houses and milk-bars.”