The Lower Eastern Times Opening The Third Eye
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Former Public Service Cabinet Secretary Justin Muturi has sharply criticised President William Ruto’s recent youth empowerment event at State House, calling it a handout scheme disguised as job creation.
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Muturi argued that providing motorbikes, car wash equipment, and sewing machines to young people was not a sustainable employment strategy but rather a way of trapping them in a cycle of poverty.
“Instead of addressing structural unemployment, the government is giving out boda bodas and calling it empowerment. That’s not job creation—it’s locking youth into small hustles and asking them to applaud it,” he said, likening the approach to “giving someone a spoon to dig a dam.”
The remarks followed Ruto’s hosting of 15,000 youths from Nairobi’s 85 wards, where machinery for small-scale businesses was distributed.
Muturi accused the Kenya Kwanza administration of “policy tokenism,” saying that serious nations invest in innovation, technology, manufacturing, and green energy to create large-scale jobs. He claimed promoting hustles over professional careers discouraged ambition and signalled economic stagnation.
Calling the policy “poverty with a helmet,” Muturi described it as political theatre where the youth serve as “props, not partners in development.” He urged the government to focus on transformative industries rather than symbolic gestures.
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The former CS, who was fired after a fallout with Ruto following his son’s abduction during the June 2024 Gen Z protests, has since joined opposition leaders in their push to unseat the president in 2027.
