Chiefs reap big in refugee camps closure

Chiefs and their assistants will be among the biggest beneficiaries of the closure of refugee camps in the country.

With about a week to the end of the current financial year, Sh1 billion was granted to the Department of Interior to support policy coordination, which gives the administrators to be involved a stipend every three months.

Details in the Supplementary Budget tabled in Parliament on Tuesday but only available yesterday show Sh1.12 billion was reallocated from refugee affairs, some of it going to the docket of Interior CS Joseph Nkaiserry.

Principal Secretary in the Interior Ministry Karanja Kibicho said the planning, policy coordination and support service programme was to ensure the administrators are effective.

Assistant chiefs are given Sh15,000 per quarter and chiefs Sh30,000.

Deputy county commissioners who manage divisions on behalf of the national government are allowed Sh150,000 every three months in a programme that also grants even bigger budgets for county commissioners and regional coordinators.

The reallocation to the Interior ministry follows a Government decision earlier in the year to shut Dadaab Camp.