A youth programme started by US ambassador Michael Rannerbeger is causing Kenyan leaders sleepless nights.
Mr Ranneberger announced the Sh3.6 billion ($45 million) initiative for Kenyan youth on December 16, last year.
He launched the Yes Youth Can programme during Kenya Children’s Parliament Foundation meeting.
Government spokesman Alfred Mutua claimed the initiative had become a plot by some “foreign powers” to topple the government.
“The government is concerned over foreign attempts to create despondency against it in the guise of youth empowerment,” he told journalists on Tuesday.
The government, he added, was aware that more than $20 million (Sh1.6 billion) had been channelled to youth groups in the country over the last few months.
Prime Minister Raila Odinga also appeared worried, warning that “it was not proper for an envoy to recruit youth and put them somewhere and tell them what to do.”
To some central Kenya MPs, the youth forum, which has become the face of the US government’s youth empowerment, is a plot to drum up support for the PM in 2012.
A delegate who attended the National Youth Forum last month told the Nation that a top politician from Central sent emissaries who met youths from the province on the sidelines.
A PS is also said to have met the youths from the province to convince them to pull out of the conference.
Mr Ranneberger on Wednesday denied such a plot existed.
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