The National Assembly Public Accounts Committee has directed the immediate halting of all further construction and financial allocations for Youth Empowerment Centres across the country after discovering a flagrant lack of value for money. Chaired by Butere MP Tindi Mwale, the powerful parliamentary oversight committee issued the drastic freeze directives on Tuesday, September 1, 2026, during an aggressive legislative review of the Auditor-General’s reports. Lawmakers expressed deep outrage that over Sh1 billion in taxpayers’ money has already been sunk into these multi-million grassroots facilities, yet an overwhelming majority continue to sit completely idle and non-operational three years after they were unveiled.
Auditor-General Nancy Gathungu’s investigative findings for the 2024/2025 financial period exposed immense administrative dysfunction within the State Department for Youth Affairs and Creative Economy. The audit showed that out of 290 planned constituency facilities, only 156 structures have been physically completed. Worse, the vast majority of these finished centers are abandoned without critical training equipment, staffing, or active youth programs. Parliamentarians strongly decried the state’s culture of injecting massive funding into brick-and-mortar structures that yield zero socioeconomic impact for Kenya’s ballooning unemployed youth demographic, characterizing the ongoing projects as a complete waste of public revenue.
Appearing before the parliamentary team at Bunge Towers, Youth Department Principal Secretary Fikirini Jacobs attempted to justify the stalled status of the projects. He attributed the operational failure to crippling budget constraints and a freeze on recruitment.
«”The non-operationalization of the youth empowerment centres is due to understaffing and serious budgetary constraints,” Jacobs told the committee during grilling.»
The Public Accounts Committee rejected the explanations, highlighting that multiple income-generating facilities like specialized car wash centres were abandoned halfway through construction despite contractors pocketing substantial initial government payments.
Committee members ordered a comprehensive countrywide status audit of all 156 existing centers before another single shilling is appropriated to the department. Lawmakers stated that continuing to expand construction while completed hubs gather dust across constituencies defies logic and demonstrates zero accountability. The committee directed the ministry to suspend expansion work and focus exclusively on recruiting staff and fully equipping the empty structures. This sweeping directive halts the national youth hub rollouts, signaling an intensified parliamentary crackdown on wasteful expenditure ahead of upcoming budget allocation cycles.