Thursday 18 April 2013

Making Youth Affairs a thematic area under "Sports, Art and Culture" is A folly Mr. President!

In unveiling his government's structure, President Uhuru released a refreshing list but one aspect was  disturbingly missing; the youth platform. It is of concern that the president saw it fit to lump youth affairs under a ministry dubbed "Sports, Art and Culture"...It should be noted that youth affairs are not limited to sports, art and culture!

Of more concern still is that the president since his swearing in has depicted signs that much as he speaks large on youth issues is intended on trivializing youth affairs platform and tools. He through his inaugural speech said he would merge the youth and women funds, an issue that didn't go down well with the affected groups.

Today the structure of government released made youth affairs a minor aspect that would be taken care of under a docket dubbed "Sports, Art and Culture." This development is disheartening and puts doubt on his commitment on matters youth, seeing how he is handling institutions, platforms and tools that should in essence be driving the youth agenda. Whoever is advising the president on youth affairs is making a serious blunder. This must be corrected immediately.

Sample the structure below:

President Uhuru Kenyatta unveils the structure of his Government.

In exercise of the authority vested in him by the Constitution of Kenya 2010 and in conformity with the expectations of a lean and effective structure, President Kenyatta officially released the list of ministries and state departments that will form the National Executive as follows:
Under the Presidency, there will the Executive Office of the President and the Executive Office of the Deputy President with two ministries:
  1. Ministry of Interior and Coordination of National Government.
  2. Ministry of Devolution and Planning.
Other ministries are:
3. Defence.
4. Foreign Affairs.
5. Education which will have the Department of Education and Department of Science and Technology.
6. The National Treasury.
7. Health.
8. Transport and Infrastructure which will have the Department of Transport Services and the Department of Infrastructure.
9. Environment, Water and Natural Resource.
10. Land, Housing and Urban Development.
11. Information, Communication and Technology (ICT) .
12. Sports, Culture and the Arts.
13. Labour, Social Security and Services.
14. Energy and Petroleum.
15. Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries under which are the Department of Agriculture, Department of Livestock and Department of Fisheries
16. Industrialization and Enterprise Development.
17. Commerce and Tourism which has the Department of Commerce and Department of Tourism.
18. Mining.
The structure also contains the Office of the Attorney General and Department of Justice.
In the new structure, President Kenyatta has collapsed the ministries from 44 to 18. The reduced structure is geared towards achieving a lean, efficient and effective executive branch of Government.
In the structure, the President has given special focus to the youth, gender, devolution, planning as well as national cohesion and integration which have all been brought under the Presidency.
Also given special focus is mining which is now a stand-alone ministry. Information, Communication and Technology ministry as well as Sports, Culture and Arts are also stand-alone ministries with a view to leveraging on the creative potential of the youth. Infrastructure ministries as well as national resources ministries have also largely been brought under the same roof.

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