The government has stated that it will continue to disburse Sh547 million to four desert areas every two months.
Public Service, Gender, Senior Citizens Affairs and Special Programmes Cabinet Secretary Margaret Kobia said yesterday that the Sh274 monthly equivalent will be used to provide cash transfers to disadvantaged households through the National Drought Management Authority’s Hunger Safety Net Programme (HSNP).
“Under the programme, each of the 100,800 households receive Sh5,400 every two months as regular cash transfer amounting to Sh547 million every two months,” said Kobia in a statement.
The money will be distributed to 100,800 households in Turkana, Marsabit, Mandera, and Wajir, four desert counties of Kenya.
In a statement released over the weekend, Kobia stated that these funds also help to protect these families from the ongoing drought.
Aside from monetary transfers, the government is attempting to improve borehole rehabilitation and maintenance, water transportation, and the provision of fuel subsidies to Strategic Boreholes.
“Various humanitarian agencies and development partners are also complementing the government efforts on drought response by providing drought relief to the affected areas,” Kobia said.
The Emergency Relief Cash Transfer Programmes started being implemented last December.
The Council of Governors (CoG) had earlier urged the government to expedite support to twenty-four counties which are affected by drought.
Through a statement, the governors said that over 3.1 million people are insecure with over 360,000 people in the emergency phase and over 800,000 children facing malnutrition.
Despite enhanced efforts by counties to mitigate the effect of drought, the governors blamed limited resource by the National Government to compliment efforts of the county governments.
“In this regard, we call upon the concerned ministry to expedite support to the affected counties so that the suffering is alleviated from the mwananchi,” read the statement.
“We also call upon devolved partners to support the affected counties to enhance their response measures,” they added.
On disbursement of county equitable share of revenue, the council has refuted claims that the counties are not utilising released funds.
According to the council, counties are starved of resources due to delayed disbursements of funds.
“We are concerned by the violation of the law and the perennial delays of disbursement of the county equitable share by the National Treasury,” stated the council.
According to the Division of Revenue Act 2021, counties were allocated equitable share of revenue amounting to Sh370 billion despite being two months to the end of financial year.
The total outstanding balance for the financial year 2021/22 amounts to Sh148.39 billion.
The outstanding amount owed to counties as per the disbursement schedule stands at Sh87.34 billion which is; Sh8.26 billion owed to eleven counties for January allocation, Sh16.20 billion owed to twenty-three counties for February allocation, Sh29.6 billion owed to forty-seven counties for March allocation and Sh33.3 billion owed to forty-seven counties for April allocation.
“While Kenyans continue to demand for services from county governments, operations at the National Government remains uninterrupted while county services are paralysed and nearly grinding to a halt,” stated the council.
They have called upon the Treasury to expedite the release of these funds to county governments without further delay failure to which they will seek legal redress to resolve the recurrent delay in disbursement of funds to counties.
They also said that they will engage Central Bank of Kenya (CBK), Commission on Revenue Allocation (CRA), Controller of Budget (CoB) and the Treasury to provide for an overdraft facility that will help cushion counties from the delay of in disbursements of funds.
The council urged all presidential aspirants to join governors and advocate for timely disbursement of funds to counties and to make commitments on the same ahead of August polls.