The national government has released Sh344.75 million to beneficiaries registered under the Inua Jamii Cash Transfer Programme in Murang’a County.
Murang’a East sub county social development officer Nicholas Omwono, speaking to KNA in his office said that the beneficiaries started receiving their money on Monday, through the established government payment service providers.
Omwono said 42,272 registered older persons and 822 Persons with Severe Disability across the county are going to benefit from the cash transfer programme.
“From the amount, Sh 338.18 million is supposed to go to Older Person Cash Transfer (OPCT) while the remaining 6.58 million will be paid to persons with severe disability,” said Omwono.
Omwono further said that each of the beneficiaries registered under the programme is supposed to get a total of Sh8000, covering the months of July, August, September and October 2022 cycle.
Beneficiaries are to collect their money from accredited Payment Service Providers that include selected commercial banks in Murang’a.
“The beneficiaries were given a chance to choose the bank of their interest and register, from which they can easily be able to access their money from,” he added.
Omwono further said Murang’a County has the highest numbers of registered elderly persons who are benefiting from the Older Person Cash Transfer Program in the country, followed by Nyeri and Kiambu counties.
“Our county is leading in terms of the number of registered aged persons, closely followed by Nyeri County with about 38,000 registered persons,” divulged Omwono.
Meanwhile, the social development officer observed that some of the beneficiaries faced some challenges, when accessing the money.
“For instance, most of these elderly people were not aware that their Inua Jamii cards expire after a number of years, hence some of them are forced to wait until they get renewals to access their stipend,” said Omwono.
Another challenge that the beneficiaries face is that some of the banks have biometrics identification procedure for persons to be able to access their money.
“Some banks use fingerprint bios recognition, which makes it difficult for a number of older people whose fingerprints are not easily detectable by the machine so they take a longer time to complete the process,” he noted.
However, for severe cases, where a person’s fingerprints are not easily detected, we write for them a letter to present to the banks to facilitate the transfer, added Omwono.
At the same time, networks in some banks were unreliable, hence making elderly people spend a lot of fare, travelling back and forth to check, when the bank network system is functional for them to transact.
“Some banks also experience system delays, which slows down the exercise of processing the cash,” he stated.
Equally, when a registered beneficiary dies, some family members fail to bring their death certificates to update in the system and payroll, hence some money remain unclaimed in the banks.
However, despite these challenges, the social development officer confirmed that the government is working on synchronizing the national and the county government Consolidated Cash Transfer Management Information System for the Inua Jamii programme.
The Inua jamii programme was started by the national government in 2017, aimed at cushioning older persons from over reliance on their family members.
By Anita Omwenga and Joy Mutonyi
