Students and youth have come out gun blazing after Cabinet Secretary for Education Amina Mohamed issued a stern warning to HELB defaulters
that the government intends to use police to arrest them.
The CS noted that some beneficiaries of the loan are yet to pay a single cent despite the fact that they are employed.
Through the Youth Congress, they have expressed their outrage on the remarks with many other youths decrying lack of employment as the major reason behind the debt.
“We demand that the Cabinet Secretary immediately withdraws the statement and tender an appropriate apology and clarification that this does not represent the position of the government,” Raphael Obonyo, co-founder of the Youth Congress said in a statement.
“Deploying police to arrest HELB defaulters is to ignore the real problem, which is unemployment. Also, the unfortunate statement amounts to criminalization of poverty,” he added.
Over 50 per cent of graduates churned out of the universities in Kenya yearly do not get jobs, another significant number are underemployed or underpaid.
The students also expressed their outrage online with some sharing memes to neutralize a rather tense moment.
For instance @KjMpoa says, ” Me and my friend when we hear #HELB is tracking us 4 years down the line and we got no other job apart from academic professional writing!”
And @LawrenceMagero added, ”
After surviving bedbugs in TUK, stress ya kukula teargas anniversary towers ju ya zawadi yangu ya kupass exams , moody lecturers wa SABE, suplementaries n retakes, stress ya attacho, after 5yrs unemployment givs me a KO alaf Amina Abdalla comes on…com finis wat u started “
@FaithArimba tweeted, ” The idea of #HELB coordinating with police to hunt down loan defaulters is ill advised, impolitic and injudicious. Personally I got first notification text from @HELBpage to start repaying their loans even before I remove the graduation gown.”
@DesAllwise explains how he used the money. He says, “I used the money to buy a sub-hoofer which was stolen a few weeks later. Some of the money I used to buy a suit which I stopped wearing because comrades started thinking that I had joined prophet Awour’s church. If they want the remaining money #NRGBreakfastClub#HELB“
The constitution expressly provides for youth empowerment, article 55 obligates the government to take measures including affirmative action programmes to ensure youth employment and development.
The congress demand that the government take all the measures necessary to tackle employment among the youth in the country.