BY ADOW JUBAT
Mandera Governor Ali Roba has launched an ambitious 86 million developed fund to help in addressing youth and women empowerment in face of shrinking employment opportunities in the country.
Launching the kitty dubbed as Mandera County Trade Development Fund (MCTDF) the county chief said initiative will offer a great leap toward addressing the ever increasing youth and women unemployment in the county.
Governor Roba said the fund will help to expand access to Islamic compliant credit to the youth and women groups and to generate gainful self-employment for the youth and women.
He urge the youth in the county to refrain from waiting for unavailable white collar jobs and instead borrow fund from several development kitties established by his administration and the national government and venture into businesses that will see them becoming self reliance and progress members of the society.
"The tendency among the youth of always expecting to be employed by the county or the national government should be discarded. Youth should instead look for alternative means of engaging themselves positively such as benefiting from this initiative", He advised.
He added "Since we took over as decentralized government my government has established several development funds to empower most vulnerable people in our society. We have initiated a cooperative fund which has been allocated 28 million shillings and fund for women and persons with disabilities with allocation of 48 million shillings",
Roba said his administration has also allocated 120 million shilling toward county bursary fund which will see the bright students from poor background to get an opportunity to continue with their education to the highest level possible.
The Mandera county boss said in the first phase each of the 30 wards in the county will be allocated with 3 million as the start fund adding that watertight legislation which shall ensure the prudent use of the money has been put in place to thwart miss.
Governor Roba urged the people of Mandera to appreciate the development brought to them by the new system of devolved governance which has changed the face of the county noting that in less than 2 years the county has achieved a lot in all sectors of development.
"In two years we managed to construct 577 kilometers of road, improved the education standard in the county which for the first time managed to produce over 400 students who attained grades that can take them to university and revived 52 collapsed health facilities", He said.
The county chief also noted his government improved agriculture and livestock sectors through implementation of proper policies and adequate funding adding that the outcome of the initiates were evident through the positive returns made by the farmers in the county.
"For the last two years despite our county experiencing biting drought our people and our livestock were not affected as it was previously the norms.
Our county used to be in the media every year of people and their animals dying of starvation, but with coming of devolution this has stopped since funds goes to the priority areas", He explained.
The MCTDF will consist of funds appropriated by the County Assembly, Grants and donations from partners/friends of Mandera County and Income generated from the proceeds of the Fund.
The Mandera County Trade Development Fund will be administered by a Board established by the MCTDF Act at the County level and Ward Committees in each of the 30 respective Wards.
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