Elderly want State to draw a new list of cash transfer beneficiaries

Senior citizens and People Living with Disabilities line up outside a bank agent in Kisii town to receive their stipend under the National Government Cash Transfer Programme. [Sammy Omingo, Standard]

Senior citizens have pleaded with the State to issue new list of cash transfer programme beneficiaries because the current one is discriminatory.

The elderly also want the government to establish a system that will automatically identify and include in the list those who attain the required age of 65 years.

Teresia Aluma, 93, has been travelling to a local bank every time she gets word that the government has released the Inua Jamii cash.

But whenever she visits the contracted service providers in Mweiga, she is turned away.

Aluma was diagnosed with breast cancer two years ago and lives in the Kiawara slums in Mweiga in Nyeri County.

"I don't have money to cater for the surgery or buy medication. If I were a beneficiary of the cash transfer programme, it would have been easier for me to seek treatment and even buy food," Aluma said.

Margret Waihuni, also from Mweiga, can't explain why she was left out during the registration exercise.

"I was among the elderly who turned up for registration but I was told to wait," Waihuni, 75, said.

She was not part of the 1.07 million beneficiaries of Sh8.58 billion released this month and wants the State to either include all senior citizens or stop the programme altogether.

"What is the essence of helping some and leaving others out? Some of us don't have people to depend on and we feel bad that the government practices favouritism," said Waihuni.

Purity Elderly Care Foundation, a group that advocates support for vulnerable elderly people in Kenya, wants the government to roll out the second phase of the recruitment instead of slashing the budgetary allocation.

According to the group's founder and chief executive Joyce Wanjku, the non-contributory programme plays a major role in uplifting the living standards of senior citizens.

"Most of the beneficiaries come from poverty-stricken families and sometimes use the money to buy medicine as some suffer from old age-related ailments. The majority of the elderly were left out during the registration and it is only fair for them to be enrolled," Wanjiku said.

Wanjiku's worry arises from the budget projections for 2023 to 2026, which shows that the cash transfer programme will have shortfalls.

State Department for Labour and Protection presentations show that the programme will get only Sh36 billion against its budgetary requirement of Sh107 billion.

"Slashing of budgetary allocation to the senior citizens will affect the government's efforts to eradicate poverty," she said. "The State should increase the budgetary allocation."