Kenya Kwanza administration through the Ministry of Public Service has announced plans to give direct passports to those who secure jobs abroad.
The new plan was revealed by Cabinet Secretary Moses Kuria on Wednesday, December 27 following a high-level meeting in Saudi Arabia.
Kuria announced that President William Ruto’s administration was at an advanced stage of opening a direct passport issuance center in Nairobi.
According to the CS, the direct passport issuance center will mainly target National Youth Service (NYS) graduates who are expected to benefit from the foreign jobs program.
“An Express Passport Issuance Centre will be opened at the NYS Head Office in Ruaraka exclusively dedicated to serving foreign-bound NYS Service men and women as we strive to get 1 Million Current, former, and future servicemen and women jobs abroad by 2026,” Kuria announced.
According to the CS, the new center will address the issue of applicants missing job opportunities due to the lack of passports. It will also ease the travel and other arrangements required before acquiring jobs abroad.
To further connect NYS servicemen to jobs abroad, Kuria announced that their curriculum will be aligned to meet the current job market demands.
“The National Youth Service will be the key driver to exporting Human Capital from Kenya. All our 22 units will be linked to over 200 Technical & Vocational Training Centres to provide a national network of Skills Verification Centers for fit for purpose skills development in partnership with destination countries,” the CS made it clear.
The new plans come after Ruto announced that NYS will be revamped to allow all Kenyans to go through their training before landing government employment.
He also announced that NYS will be a beneficiary of technical jobs offered to Kenyans by other foreign countries including Israel.
“We have also agreed that NYS and we are already concluding negotiations with Germany, Saudi Arabia and ex other eight countries on the export of labour and the NYS will be the central organization for pre-deployment training so that Kenyans will understand what they need to do as labour exported from Kenya,” he stated.
“In order to use the NYS as the incubator, the National Security Council has decided that going forward 80% of all security recruitment will be from the National Youth Service. All those in the KDF, Kenya Police, Kenya Forest Service, KWS…80% will be from the National Youth Service recruits.”
By Jerry Njomo
