Author: djadmin

The State Department for Diaspora Affairs yesterday launched an inaugural Diaspora Jobs fair in Meru County that attracted hundreds of youth seeking employment opportunities abroad.

Speaking during the launch, the department’s Principal Secretary (PS) Roseline Njogu said the purpose of the fair was to bring together people with skills and ready for job opportunities abroad and the recruiting agencies who will link them with the available jobs.

She said this was in line with President William Ruto’s manifesto in addressing youth unemployment in the country by collaborating with foreign countries who in turn offer available slots for the country.

‘We have about 520 licensed recruitment agencies and these can be found in the National Employment Authority (NEA) website and 14 crew recruitment agencies who are registered by the Kenya Maritime Authority (KMA).’

‘We urge Kenyans seeking job opportunities abroad to first check whether the agencies they are dealing with are registered by the two institutions befo
re going forward to give them money,’ Ms Njogu cautioned.

She added that in the last 16 months, her department has been very keen to weed out the unregistered agencies as well as punishing those that are registered but are not acting as per regulations.

‘When we started, we had more than 1,200 recruiting agencies but currently we have only 520 after deregistering the ones that were not toeing the line.

This tells you that we are very firm in ensuring that Kenyans are not conned or mistreated by any recruiting agency whatsoever,’ said Ms Njogu.

On the issue of ensuring that the welfare and rights of Kenyans working abroad are protected, the PS said that they have a board that looks into this and that they have already visited about 35 Kenya Consulates, Missions, and Embassies abroad sensitising Kenyans and issuing them with the right documents so that they can travel comfortably whenever they wish to.

‘If you are keen, you will realise distress calls from Kenyans working in the Middle East have reduced in
the last 16 months courtesy of our department’s efforts to ensure that their welfare is taken care of.’

‘We also recently evacuated Kenyans in Israel when war broke out there and it is on record that Kenya was the first country to evacuate her citizens from South Sudan when war broke out. This is what our department is meant to do and we will not relent in protecting our people working abroad,’ said Ms Njogu.

Her Technical and Vocational Education Training (TVET) counterpart Dr Esther Muoria said their main mandate is to equip young Kenyans with skills that will enable them to get jobs abroad.

She said they have already changed the curricula, ensured there are enough and qualified trainers as well as good space for trainees to acquire the necessary skills.

‘We are actively listening to the diaspora needs in terms of skills so that we can equip our young people with the right ones and ensure that they fit the job market,’ said Dr Muoria.

Source: Kenya News Agency

Nakuru County’s Department of Health is conducting a comprehensive review of the implementation progress of the Kenya Electronic Medical Records (EMR) roadmap, a project that seeks to digitize all medical records and help the county go paperless with the support of USAID, Health IT initiative.

This collaborative effort aims to enhance digital health solutions across the county, ensuring streamlined and efficient healthcare delivery aligning with the deployment of a robust digital system in healthcare to ensure efficiency in patient management, and transparency in resource utilization.

The County Director for ICT Leonard Kirui today commended USAID for supporting Nakuru County with developing and deploying EMRs through capacity building and technical support.

He noted that this review aims to empower the County managers implement health automation to embrace the latest cutting-edge technology for improved healthcare outcomes.

Additionally, he said once the EMR is implemented countrywide, no patient would
be required to walk around with x-rays in envelopes or any other medical records since everything would be available at the touch of the button.

In the past, expectant mothers and other patients were required to carry cards which held records of the progress of their pregnancy, and once they gave birth, they were added another card indicating the birth date of the infant and they were required to carry it until all the immunization jabs were completed.

Unfortunately, the mothers who lost the cards were not only scolded by the nurses but some simply stopped taking the babies for the remaining vaccinations, which sometimes led to infant mortality.

Furthermore, Kirui said the EMR would ensure every child born in the country completes their immunisation and the dates of birth would be immortalized and that would enable even those born in remote areas get to know their exact birthdays instead of being told, ‘oh you were born during the rainy season or famine’.

Present during the training were the County Direct
or for Health Administration and Planning Dr Joy Mugambi, technical officers from the County, and Health IT and IT experts from the University of Nairobi.

Source: Kenya News Agency

Busia Governor Paul Otuoma has urged partners on climate change to ensure that funds are channeled to support the common mwananchi at the grassroot level.

Speaking to the victims of floods in Bunyala South Ward on Thursday, Otuoma noted that several meetings on climate change were being held in high end hotels, yet some of the most affected people were not being supported.

‘ Several capacity buildings have been held in big hotels for the last 60 years, yet our people have not received any help,’ he said.

He pointed out that Sh35 billion that were set aside by the National Assembly for Emergency response have not been disbursed to the County.

‘I want to urge those concerned to do what is expected of them instead of waiting to see Kenyans lose lives to disaster,’ he said.

The governor stated that Busia County expected to be given Sh700 million but the devolved unit has received only Sh35 million to date.

‘As Western region, we suggested that a dam be constructed at Charanganyi , Lugari , Siaya, Malakisi
with a view to contain the waters that are affecting the residents of Bunyala through floods,’ he said, adding that implementation of programmes is a big challenge.

Otuoma further stated that governors are willing to cooperate with the national government and support the implementation of national government programmes.

‘This is because we must move away from rain-fed agriculture and embrace irrigation,’ he said, adding that there was a need to implement programmes in line with the vision 2030.

He further urged development partners to move away from board room meetings but instead provide resources that can relieve the common man from suffering.

‘We must find a permanent solution to the Budalangi floods because we also fought for Independence,’ he said, adding that the County leadership was ready to sacrifice whatever little resources that it has to ensure that people do not die from situations that can be prevented.

Bunyala Deputy County Commissioner Paul Papa urged those living in flood prone areas alo
ng River Nzoia to move to higher grounds.

Papa stated that 1700 households displaced and were living in temporary camps were in dire need of humanitarian support.

The flood victims received 160 bags of rice, 212 cartons of cooking fat, 90 bags of maize, 90 bags of beans and 250 cartons of bar soap from the County government

Source: Kenya News Agency

The Ministry of Health has launched the staff head count to eliminate ghost workers in the health ministry.

The Principal Secretary (PS) State Department for Medical Services, Harry Kimutai, who led the inauguration of the exercise at Afya House grounds on Thursday, said the aim of the head count is to enable the department to know the exact number of staff it has for purposes of cleaning the payroll system and removing ghost workers.

Kimutai said that the matter of undertaking the exercise had been discussed at a senior management meeting and passed by the ministry for effective service delivery.

The PS noted that all members of staff will be required to submit their documents within a period of seven-days, failure to which after 30 days, the employees will receive a suspension letter and thereafter go through the disciplinary process.

‘Tell your colleagues, wherever they are, that if they don’t submit their paperwork to be aligned with their files by the end of this month, we will stop their salary unt
il they come,’ cautioned the PS.

Kimutai added, ‘Those who fail to submit their papers for verification will be deemed to have absconded duty, more so those on strike.’

‘This is an exercise that has been sanctioned by the public service, so as to verify our certificates with either the National Examination Council, universities and colleges that we went through,’ he said.

‘I want you people to take this exercise very seriously, we are already done with the team that is in Mathare,’ he urged.

Kimutai announced at the same time that within the next seven-days, when the headcount exercise takes place, staff will be deployed to various counties where there is inadequate staff.

He observed that some employees are overburdened with a lot of work, whereas there are colleagues who are earning salaries and are using their working hours to run their own errands.

‘We need to allocate duties according to the establishment so that other employees are not overburdened,’ the PS stated.

The PS noted that the ministry
has been shouldering the burden of paying officers who are on the payroll salaries, yet they are working for Non-governmental organisations and earning allowances, adding that a total of 1000 employees who are supposed to be in the State Department for Medical Services are not seen at their places of work.

‘Immediately we are done with this exercise, and before we get approval from Public Service to advertise the vacant positions, we will realign the heads of divisions and the heads of directorate according to staff establishment and suitability that we would have done on assessment,’ said the PS.

Source: Kenya News Agency

Four people died in a landslide Thursday night, May 2, 2024, in the Florina quarter in Maroua, Far North region.

The deceased persons, three women and a little girl according to locals were extracting rocks to smaller particles on a hill before a mass of earth collapsed and buried them.

It is suspected rock extraction and vibration caused by their crushing activity provoked the incident.

Their bodies were pulled out by elements of the army rescue unit in Maroua with assistance from the population who had already saved two women with injuries before the arrival of the rescue team.

Far North governor and other administrative and security officials descended on the scene to take stock of the situation.

Source: Cameroon News Agency