A group of young people were on Tuesday teargassed by police after they staged a sit-in outside the county assembly of Kitui to protest over delayed salaries.
The over 300 workers from the Kitui County Textile Centre (KICOTEC) and the Kitui Youth Skills and Enterprise Centre (KIYOSEC) had blocked MCAs from accessing the county assembly premises.
Police were called in to disperse them after attempts by the serjeant-at-arms to persuade them to leave failed.
The workers claimed they have not been paid since March. They also claimed that MCAs had failed to allocate funds to Kicotec and two proposed subsidiaries in Mwingi and Mutomo towns.
Protester Titus Kabwere said they decided to hold a peaceful demonstration to show their anger.
But Finance executive Ben Katungi on Tuesday dismissed allegations that the youths have not been paid for months.
He said only county workers have not received their July pay because of a budget stalemate between the executive and MCAs. Kicotec workers have not been affected by the stalemate and their salaries are up-to-date.
Katungi, however, said the stalemate over the 2020-21 budget has affected the funding of the proposed Mutomo and Mwingi Kicotec branches.
He said a solution is being sought to end the stalemate. After MCAs passed the Sh11.3 billion budget on last June 30, the governor rejected it, saying it had been doctored and thus foreign to her executive.
When the assembly was deliberating on the budget, they removed all the funds provided for Kicotec.
They argued that since it was a county corporation, the law allows that it gets funding for only three financial years, which it had already received.
They said Kicotec should be self-sustaining by now. County assembly clerk Elijah Mutambuki did not pick calls on Tuesday to comment on the issue.
Edited by A.N
