Azimio-One Kenya presidential candidate Raila Odinga says should he win the elections his government will rely on data from the Kenya Bureau of Statistics to select beneficiaries of the Sh6,000 monthly stipend under its ambitious social protection fund.

Raila said the stipend will only be available to deserving households that are living below the poverty line.

Responding to critics of his campaign pledge, Raila said the social protection programme exists in other countries.

He cited the United Kingdom, most European countries, the United States, Brazil and in Africa, Egypt and Namibia.

“And what we are talking about is a number of Kenyans who live below the poverty line,” Raila said on Tuesday evening during a joint media engagement with his running mate Martha Karua.

Two million

A person in Kenya is considered to be living below the poverty line if their monthly food and non-food expenditure is Sh3,252 and Sh5,995 in rural and urban areas, respectively.

Raila said the beneficiaries have already been profiled by the KNBS and found to be about two million families.

This, he said, translates to about eight million people if on average a family consists of four members.

People are giving money to families, not individuals. And so if it is Sh6,000 per family for two million families, this is 12 billion per month and close to 144 billion shillings per year,” he said.

Raila said the funds will be sourced from sealing the pilferage of public funds through skewed procurement and other means of corruption like revenue collection.

“President Uhuru Kenyatta spoke about Sh2 billion lost daily through corruption. President Obama also spoke about it being Sh700 billion [per year]. If you basically try to lock this, you can have a savings of Sh500 billion (and) we are talking about only Sh144 billion shillings,” Raila said.

The former premier defended the amount, arguing despite it appearing meagre it will bring the families to the minimum basic level.

Jamii programme

He also said the programme is not a replica of the Inua Jamii programme, a cash transfer programme for the elderly, persons with disabilities and orphans.

“It is a separate programme. Some of them will be included in this group but this is over and above the Inua Jamii programme. This one here is targeting those specific families who have been profiled by the National Bureau of Statistics,” he said.