Busia County Commissioner Kipchumba Rutto during the launch of Inua Jamii phase II
The national government has embarked on the second phase of registering elders, people living with disabilities, orphans, and vulnerable children in Busia County.
The Inua Jamii program will enable those registered benefit from the pension schemes will take place across various sub-counties in Busia.
According to Esther Wasige, the Busia County director of Children’s Department, phase two of the program will see them registering those above 70 years and are not in pension schemes.
The registration also aims at registering orphans, vulnerable children and those living with disabilities, who were left out during the first phase.
“We are targeting to register 760 people living with a disability regardless of age. We also aim to register 6,902 orphans and vulnerable children and those above 70 years and not on the pension scheme,” she said
Addressing the targeted groups at Kaliwa Chief’s Camp, Teso South Busia County, Ms Wasige said that the government is coming up with modality to enable beneficiaries to receive their money closer to them.
This according to her will shorten the long distances the beneficiaries travel to receive their tokens.
This will be made possible through coordination between the social service officers and bank agents who will avail the funds to the beneficiaries’ homes or nearest points.
“We have plans to take the money where the beneficiaries are. The social service officers will work with bank agents to take the money to the beneficiaries’ doorsteps,” she stated.
She, however, clarified that there are cases where beneficiaries are removed from the register after they turn out of age, especially cases involving orphans and vulnerable families.
“In a situation where an orphan turns 23 years old, the system will remove him/her automatically. However, we carry out investigations and if we find some problems we fix them and return them to the program,” she said
Busia County Commissioner Mr Kipchumba Rutto assured those affected that the process will be free and fair adding that every deserving case will be registered.
According to him, in the phase one registration process, a lot of deserving cases were locked out of the program, the reason the government launched phase two of the Inua Jamii registration process.
“Thousands of deserving Kenyans were left out in the first phase. We are going to mop out and register all who were left out in phase one. Our appeal is to the potential beneficiaries to come out with the required documents and register,” he noted
Ms Rosemary Auma, one of the beneficiaries of the Inua Jamii program noted that through the program she is able to educate her grandchildren.
“I want to thank the government for rolling out this program. Through it we are able to take our children to schools, by paying them school fees, and buying other essentials required in schools,” she noted
She, however, appealed to the government to continue supporting the orphans through the program beyond form four through university and college adding that, educating learners up to fourth form and abandoning them is affecting their education.
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