• 1.3 million cash transfer beneficiaries to receive their March and April stipend.
• Each beneficiary is paid Sh2,000 monthly stipend.
Image: FILE
Some 54,454 cash transfer beneficiaries have until today to open accounts through which they will receive their monthly stipend, the government announced yesterday.
Social Protection Principal Secretary Nelson Marwa directed elderly people, orphans and vulnerable children and those living with severe disabilities who had not opened accounts in the first phase of registration in March to ensure they do so by today.
The aim, he said, is to ensure that all the 1.3 million cash transfer beneficiaries receive their March and April monthly stipends straight into the accounts.
Each beneficiary is paid Sh2,000 monthly adding up Sh4,000 every two months.
Marwa said in a statement that those who had not received their payments until February will have their disbursements backdated.
The beneficiaries have been categorised into orphans and vulnerable children, older persons and persons with severe disabilities.
These are covered under the Older Persons Cash Transfer, Persons with Severe Disability Cash Transfer and Cash Transfer for Orphans’ and Vulnerable Children.
Also covered are those living in extreme hunger.
Those targeted in the latest exercise are those who failed to open up their accounts in the first round owing to inconsistencies in their details and those of the paying banks.
“I am urging all beneficiaries to open the accounts to ensure they receive their next cash disbursements without any difficulties,” Marwa said.
He added: “The government will not send out funds to beneficiaries without accounts.”
The process of opening the accounts started on April 23, according to a letter by Marwa dated April 15.
According to statistics from the Social Protection department, 42,092 accounts were to be opened for older persons, 9,251 for orphans and vulnerable children and 3,111 for persons living with disabilities.
Until recently, the money was paid out through specific dissemination centres, which made it difficult for the ageing members to access.
Last month, the government released Sh12.5 billion as direct payment to beneficiaries in the three programmes under the Consolidated Cash Transfer Programme (CCTP) who had successfully opened bank accounts.
Payment was done by the four contracted service providers - Co-operative Bank, Equity Bank, Kenya Commercial Bank and Post Bank.
“We are determined to ensure we pay beneficiaries in cash and in good time,” Marwa said.
“We as ministry will not tolerate cases where caregivers, bank agents or any other individual want to take advantage of the beneficiaries,” he added.
Under the payments last month, each beneficiary received Sh12,000 meant for the three cycles - September-October 2018, November-December, 2018 and January-February, 2019.