NYS officers to unclog drainage in flood hit areas - CS Kuria

By Peter Ochieng

Cabinet Secretary (CS) for public service, performance management and delivery Moses Kuria says going foward, National Youth Service (NYS) officers will be instrumental in scaling effects of floods in various parts of the country.

Kuria says NYS officers will be deployed to unclog drainage and build resilient infrastructure.

Mandera, Garissa, Mombasa and Tana River are some of the counties hard hit by the ongoing heavy rainfall, which has been christened El Nino.

The decision to deploy NYS officers was arrived at on Monday, during a meeting between the CS, Principal Secretaries Amos Gathecha of Public Service; Dr. Julius Korir of Water and Sanitation; Harsama Kello of ASALs and Regional Development and NYS Acting Director General James Tembur, among other senior government officials.

"Our discussions were centered on the involvement of NYS in sectors such as agriculture, water harvesting, disaster management, and Huduma Services," said the vocal CS.

"Our plan is to have NYS involved in the building and rehabilitation of water infrastructure like dams, water canals, dykes, and pans across the country. The servicemen and women will also be pivotal in utilizing government land that has been lying unused for agricultural activities to ensure our country becomes self sufficient in food production," he added.

They also discussed the rollout of Huduma centers across all 290 constituencies, in order to take government services closer to the wananchi.

While presiding over celebrations to mark 10 years of Huduma Kenya in Nakuru County recently, Kuria promised to make sure all the 290 constituencies have at least one Huduma centre.

Currently, there are slightly over 50 Huduma centres across the country.

The centres provide a one stop shop for Kenyans to access all government services, ranging from applying and replacing nation Identification Card (ID) to applying for police certificate of good conduct among others.