Should the older generation give room to the younger generation?

Just recently, President Uhuru Kenyatta made some 302 appointments to 79 state corporations under the Kenya Gazette Special Issue, Vol. CXVII-No. 43; which was published on the 27^th day of April 2015.

According to the state house spokesperson Manoah Esipisu, these appointments were made by the Government after carrying out “a comprehensive appraisal of all the state corporations particularly on staffing, capacity and management practices”. The appraisal is said to have taken at least 18 months and was carried out by the Presidential Taskforce on Parastatals Reforms.

Esipisu stated that the appointments were in line with the Constitution’s requirements especially when it comes to the appointment of Youth, Women, and Persons with Disabilities. He went on to justify the appointments by adding that the appointments tapped into the wisdom, experience and knowledge associated with senior citizens; while combining it with the energy, enthusiasm as well as innovation of the young people. Esipisu concluded that once the appointment exercise is concluded, the government will surpass the 31% mark of women, youth and persons with disabilities appointed in senior positions in the government. Should this be achieved, this will be the highest ever composition of the Women, Youths and Persons with Disabilities in Government appointments since independence.

However, even with that much justification by the state house spokesperson, these appointments were not received well especially by our Kenyan youth. The major ball of contention was that most of the people appointed into these positions were the senior citizens who have had a long service in the government and have nothing more to offer. The social media was abuzz with sentiments particularly on the issue of unemployed youth, who cannot find jobs while retirees keep clinging onto jobs that could have been occupied by the youth.

This begs me to ask, should the senior citizens make room for the youth? Should age be a factor when it comes to our workforce or should we consider productivity and competence? To some extent I agree with Manoah Esipisu that it is important to strike a balance when it comes to the workforce. Innovation, enthusiasm and energy without wisdom knowledge and experience could significantly cost us.

I believe that in Kenya, the problem should be unfair work practices as well as management, which tends not to hold all employees under the same performance standard. Most of us at some point, have been disappointed by the quality of services offered by Government Institutions. Are all the poor performing workers senior citizens? The answer is a resounding no! In fact when it comes to the quality of older workforce, they have better work ethics and a whole weight of experience. In addition, when one needs money to pay rent, it doesn’t matter how old you are, all you need is the money.

Our economy has been gradually been growing, and is expected to hit the 6.9% mark this year. There is an exponential potential in advancing Kenya into a medium economy by growing our economy even better. The question we need to ask here is where are the jobs especially with the dawn of such economic growth? As the youth, we need to shift from asking “who gets the jobs?” and start asking ourselves “where are the jobs?” or else the youth unemployment problem will never end. Every successive government will promise to solve problem of unemployment, but they cannot be counted to provide the jobs. In the same spirit, corporate Kenya cannot be counted to solve this problem either since most of them are geared towards lower running costs in order to achieve higher profits. This said, most corporations are cutting back the recurrent expenses, one of them being salaries.

That said; the problem of youth unemployment could best be solved by the Kenyan youth themselves. As Kenyan youth, we need to shift to creating these jobs ourselves. We need to apply that innovation, energy and enthusiasm into determining gaps in the existing business ideas and capitalize on that. Be as creative and unique as possible and jobs will be created!