By Hassan Wekesa - Editor
Kenya, 11 September 2026 - The National Youth Opportunities Towards Advancement (NYOTA) Project on Friday issued a public alert cautioning Kenyans against scams involving fake applications and websites that purport to distribute funds.
NYOTA is a Government of Kenya initiative, supported by the World Bank, aimed at improving employment prospects and earnings for vulnerable youth aged 18 to 29 and up to 35 for those with disabilities.
Beneficiaries under its various interventions, including business support, receive payments directly rather than through third-party platforms.
In an alert on X platform youth and members of the general public have been advised to note that the NYOTA Project does not have an APP or website for disbursing funds to beneficiaries.
Beneficiaries receive funds directly to the phone numbers they used during application for the respective NYOTA interventions.
“The official NYOTA Project application channel remains *254#. NYOTA Project does not use links to enrol beneficiaries into the project. Do not click on or share links claiming to register you for NYOTA or facilitate payments," it stated, emphasising to applicants to confine to Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD).
“All official communication to beneficiaries is made through SMS and is also shared through the project’s official communication channels and website.
“Do not be a victim of fraud. Report suspicious or fraudulent pages, apps and messages to the relevant authorities for appropriate action," the project further warned, urging Kenyans to be vigilant and to stay alert and safe.
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President William Ruto, Deputy President Prof Kithure Kindiki and Cabinet Secretary for Cooperatives and MSMEs Wycliffe Oparanya and Principal Secretary for MSMEs Susan Mang'eni have repeatedly stressed that all NYOTA services are free of charge.
Application and enrolment processes rely solely on the USSD code *254#, with subsequent communications limited to official SMS messages and verified project channels.
On Wednesday, Prof Kindiki announced that the government plans to roll out a new project that aims to boost businesses. He stated during a Karen meeting with other government officials that the Ruto administration plans to roll out the Kenya Jobs for Economic Transformation (KJET) programme in October to support thousands of micro and small business enterprises across the country to acquire common-user equipment for value addition and small-scale manufacturing at the local level.
“Clusters of micro and small enterprises selected equitably from every county, constituency and ward levels will be assisted with common-user equipment, to add value to dairy, coffee, tea, leather, artisanal mining, blue economy, edible oils and leather enterprises,” Kindiki stated.
He said the support will be in the form of matching grants of a non-repayable 50% of the cost of the equipment, to be disbursed in three cohorts in October, November and January.
The KJET enterprise support component rollout, just like the ongoing NYOTA Project, will target rural entrepreneurs who in the past have been underserved due to the informal nature and small scale of their enterprises.