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Victims of drought will start receiving a monthly stipend from the government to alleviate their suffering, Labour CS Ukur Yattani has said. 

Speaking during the launch of the Ministry of Labour and Social Protection Strategic Plan 2018-2019 whose full implementation will require at least Sh200 billion, Yattani said they were phasing out relief food in favour of cash.

“A taskforce is in place working on modalities to include the victims of drought to the current social protection programme. We want to change relief food into cash transfer,” he said.

The current programme covers the cash transfer for orphans and vulnerable children, older persons and the persons with severe disabilities where a total of 1.3 million persons are benefitting.

 “Cash to hunger victims will bring dignity to the people instead of them queuing for food,” he said.

He added that the cash transfer programme will cut on transport and storage cost saving the government a huge amount of money.

“Sometime relief food get diverted to other unintended areas, stolen, goes bad among other risks,” he added.

Under the social welfare programme dubbed Inua Jamii, poor citizens aged 70 and above receive Sh4,000 every two months. 

The programme is aimed at ensuring the country’s senior citizens to not slide into extreme poverty, hunger, and consequent premature death.