Members of Parliament (MPs) have declined to approve National Youth Service (NYS) ksh22billion budget for the 2018/2019 financial year due to the scandals that have marred the service.
According to the National Assembly Committee on Labour and Social Welfare which is tasked to oversee the Ministry of Public Service, Youth and Gender Affairs, the money requested by NYS will be shared and channelled to youth and women enterprise fund.
Speaking to journalists, chairman of the committee Ali Wario exclaimed that they have agreed to concentrate on constituency based activities that impact on many lives like the youth fund.
"For now we have agreed that we will not approve the requested amount but will scale it down and channel more resources to constituency based activities and other more priority areas.
[caption caption="File image of Buura MP Ali Wario"]
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The Buura MP also stated: "Our decision has been informed by the concern we have received from the people and the latest scandal at NYS where billions belonging to the public have been stolen."
Additionally, Homa Bay Woman Rep Gladys Wanga divulged that the decision is one of the actions the committee has taken to block another scandal from happening and getting things right at the service.
Ms Wanga, who is a committee member, affirmed: "We just started our work recently and already there is a scandal. But we have started putting things in place so as to avoid future loss of public funds."
Muhoroni MP James K'Oyoo noted that the committee will work with the ministry to ensure that proper policies guarding public money are in place and adhered to.
"For now we have reduced the budget because we think there are more priority areas that deserve more budgetary allocation than NYS," the legislator mentioned.
However, the MPs did not disclose how much they would slash from the proposal.
The ksh22billion was requested by the Ministry for the purposed of its recurrent and development activities.
[caption caption="File image of NYS Recruits "]
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