A video posted by a Nairobi woman has gone viral for criticising President Uhuru Kenyatta and his Deputy William Ruto for issuing menial jobs to the youth other than their children.
Lucia Ayiela highlighted the dire unemployment situation in the country while at the same time castigating the two leaders for not giving their children a slasher or wheelbarrow to do menial jobs but expected degree holders to do so.
"Now they want to give me, a degree holder, a slasher and a wheelbarrow so that I can do menial jobs. Does it mean that my degree is not like that of Ngina Kenyatta or Nick Ruto?" she asked.
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Ayiela's rant came after she was asked to pay Ksh10,000 to register a company.
She had decided to create employment after staying jobless for a while.
"Last week, I started the process of registering a company limited by guarantee so that it can operate as a nonprofit for purposes of civic education and capacity development. The charges were Ksh3,000 which I thought was manageable and so I registered.
"I was, however, informed that my application had an error and they sent it back for me to made a correction. However, after making the correction, I received an extra charge of Ksh7,000," she added.
Ayiela questioned how an unemployed youth, still living with the parents, could afford to pay such an exorbitant amount for the registration of a company.
Her video has attracted the attention of the business registration service who have indicated that they working on easing the cost of doing business.
Unemployment remains a hot button issue in Kenya's economy. More than one million Kenyans have lost their jobs from March 2020 due to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.
According to the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics 2015/16 Basic Labour Force report, the number of youth who join the market annually is estimated to be 800,000.
There has been a spike in the number of Kenyans registering their own companies. The latest data from the Registrar of Companies show that business names registered between April and November 2020, rose by 58.5 percent.
This has been the biggest growth recorded in Kenya for decades with 65,782 new business names registered during the period as compared to 41,490 during a similar period in 2019.
Experts have pegged the huge spike to the mass layoffs witnessed following the pandemic which in turn pushed Kenyans to try their hand in entrepreneurship.
