The National Youth Service (NYS) graduates will be given the first priority in the recruitment of new rangers exercise by the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS).
This was revealed by President William Ruto, who spoke on Friday, April 12, during the launch of the Human-Wildlife Conflict Mitigation and Compensation Scheme in Rumuruti Laikipia County.
The head of state noted that the recruitment exercise set to kick off Monday next week seeks to onboard 1,500 new rangers.
“In that recruitment plan, I have directed that we must ensure that the majority of those given priority are our young people who have graduated from NYS. We want those young people from NYS to get an opportunity to serve, as I instructed in matters of the security sector,” Ruto stated.
He further urged KWS to give affirmative action to counties facing human-wildlife conflicts in the recruitment of new rangers.
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“My directive is that those counties facing challenges with wildlife reserves such as Laikipia should be given affirmative action to have more young people than other counties. This is because they understand wildlife issues and the pains caused by wildlife damaging citizens’ property,” Ruto ordered.
The latest directive echoes Ruto’s revelation last year that the government will give NYS personnel the first priority in domestic security jobs, including those of the Kenya Defence Forces, Kenya Police, Kenya Forest Service, and the Kenya Wildlife Service.
“In order to use the NYS as the incubator, the National Security Council has decided that going forward 80% of all security recruitment will be from the National Youth Service,” Ruto said.