Embu youths embezzle Ksh10M kitty and disappear

The Embu County Assembly Committee on Thursday revealed that hundreds of Embu youths, who benefited from the Ksh10 million County Youth Trust Fund, have since embezzled the money and gone into hiding.

The County Youth Trust Fund was established to help the county’s young entrepreneurs actualise their business dreams through low interest loans.

According to Embu Youth and Sports Chairlady, Shunem Ngira, this fund had been mistaken for a free cash scheme by some youths who now cannot be traced after taking loans of up to Ksh250, 000.

Ngira revealed that a survey, conducted across the county to check on how the youths were doing in the businesses they started, unearthed damning evidence that most youths who received more than Ksh200, 000 had migrated to the city instead of starting enterprises.

She, however, observed that beneficiaries of small amounts of Ksh20, 000 and below had faired considerably well in small scale businesses. She further stated that some were planning to offset their loans in one installment since they had earned handsome returns on their investments.

The committee has now called on the County Executive Committee member in charge of the Youth and Sports docket to enforce a mechanism that would ensure all the money is recovered so that more youths benefit from the kitty which was conceptualized as a revolving fund.

Ngira also intimated that plans to decentralize the fund issuance to the ward level were in the pipeline, adding that this would be more efficient.

Ngira further added that the committee will ensure that the applicants vet one another because they would know each other well having originated from the same locality.

The charlady alluded to intentions to boost the fund with an extra Ksh5 Million in the 2016/2017 Fiscal Year to give young entrepreneurs access to a Ksh15 Million loans kitty for start-up capital for their business ideas.

She noted that a misconception that the County Government was giving money with the knowledge that the initiative would fail had misled hundreds of youths to believe that the County Youths Ministry would be unenthusiastic to recover the monies from them.