Bungoma Governor Wycliffe Wangamati has urged the national government to engage unemployed youths as clerks during the census in August.
It has been a trend for employed government officials to ask for leave from work to benefit from such opportunities.
"Unemployment is the biggest problem we are facing as a country. For the census, I have requested county commissioner Stephen Kihara to direct his team in charge of recruitment to consider our unemployed youth," he said.
The governor also urged Bungoma residents to take the census seriously because it will determine the county's revenue allocation.
"The new revenue allocation formula will follow population density. If we participate fully in this census, we are likely to become second in population after Nairobi county," he said.
Wangamati spoke in Mitua Soysambu, Tongaren constituency, on Sunday during the thanksgiving ceremony for Education chief officer Rose Murunga.
On other development matters, the governor assured Tongaren residents that the Brigadier-Misikhu tarmac road is set to be completed early next year.
"The contractor is back on site and we expect him to complete this road by next year. I have instructed him to repair the undone section towards Misikhu to make it passable, and he is already doing that," the county chief said.
Wangamati said he is alive to the fact that if his regime fails to finish the road, he won't get votes in Tongaren in the next election.
Edited by R.Wamochie
