Youths engage police in street battle to protest recruitment of census officials
Police were on Thursday forced to fire teargas canisters at a group of rowdy youths who took to the streets in Kangemi to protest the recruitment of census officials in the area.
The youths had stormed the census enumerators training centre in Kihumbuini Primary School in Kangemi, Nairobi County to protest what they termed as a ‘flawed’ recruitment exercise.
AREA RESIDENTS
According to some of the residents, majority of the enumerators are not from Kagemi but from Eastlands.
The Westlands Member of Parliament Tim Wanyonyi also said the training will not continue until the register of the trainees is audited.
The youth have now come up with a list of names from the residents of Westlands and presented it to the area chief to be considered for the jobs.
On Wednesday, youths from Kiambaa Constituency complained about the census officials not being area residents.
RECRUITMENT
From a total of 183 officials, the youth say 121 officials are not from Kiambaa constituency.
In a related incident, five people from Homa Bay county have moved to court to stop the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) from carrying out the census exercise in the county.
The five, Michael Otieno, Evance Oloo, John Okambo, Antony Gaya and Daniel Otieno Onyango, have accused KNBS of failing to adhere to the principles of recruitment by hiring people who had not applied for the various positions and who are serving as public servants, terming it unconstitutional.
A total of 174,700 are supposed to be hired during the 2019 census that is meant to take place from August 24, 2019.