The rise of mobile lenders has left a majority of the youth in a debt trap.
So bad is the situation that some cannot be paid their dues from the Kazi Mtaani project because of outstanding loans with Fuliza, a Safaricom product.
Since Fuliza loan is deducted automatically, most of them registered with different cell phone numbers to evade this.
“Some used IDs that belong to other family members. The challenge is that the details provided do not match their ID numbers, resulting in pay delay,” reads a report by the National Assembly Committee on Labour and Social Services.
Beneficiaries are paid a weekly stipend of Sh1,000 by the State Department of Interior and Co-ordination of the National Government through M-Pesa.
The project is located in 23 informal settlements and seeks to improve urban infrastructure and services.
However, all is not well as there have been protests over pay in Murang’a, Isiolo and Mvita.
Last week, Housing Principal Secretary Charles Hinga assured the youth that county implementation committees will capture their details, including name, ID and phone numbers, which will be verified against returns from the paying agency, adding that legitimate claims will be processed.
“Payments for workers under the Kazi Mtaani programme are made via mobile money and it has been noted that some workers’ details may have had errors which resulted in their payments not going through,” Hinga said.
The project aims to reach 669,000 households across all the 290 constituencies.
The report notes that the current payroll figure stands at 341,958 households.
So far, out of the Sh10 billion allocated for the purpose of cushioning the elderly, orphans and vulnerable members of the society, the government has disbursed Sh1.3 billion for phase one, Sh2.4 billion and Sh5.6 billion has been earmarked for phase three.
