Renowned lawyer Paul Muite has opposed a proposal to offer a monthly hardship allowance of Sh3,000 to unemployed youth by the government.
Muite said the Bill seeking to amend the Employment Act and Social Assistance Act to provide Kenyan youth with the allowance will not solve the high rate of unemployment in the country.
In a tweet on Tuesday, he said the government will be forced to tax working Kenyans more to get the allowance for millions of unemployed youth.
The Safina party leader also expressed fears that the scheme could turnout to be another cash cow for corrupt senior officials in the government.
"Youths need employment not handouts; create it through conducive policies. Sh3,000 has to come from taxpayers; already reeling from over-taxation. Will Sh3,000 be sustainable given the numbers of unemployed youths? Is it another cash cow for the State employed?" Muite posed.
Activist Ndung'u Wainaina also opposed the proposal, arguing it will not help the jobless youth whom he noted needed to be provided to the right working environment to succeed in life.
"Young people demands are simple: economic opportunities, access to basic services and fullment of rights. We need programs with locally rooted social-economic models that combine investments in local support structures, education, skills development and enabling local policies," Wainaina said.
In August 2018, Mathare MP Anthony Oluoch asked the government to declare youth unemployment a national disaster claiming the “overall unemployment among youth is at 55%”.
Speaking in the National Assembly, he proposed a special fund for youth empowerment be "at least 5% of annual national revenue collections" and be administered by a board or commission.