Following a government directive requiring beneficiaries of the Inua Jamii Cash Transfer Programme to withdraw all their funds from bank accounts as the system transitions to a new payment model, the government has issued fresh instructions for those who failed to comply.
On Tuesday, Principal Secretary for Social Services Joseph Motari announced that the government would extend the compliance period by an additional five days.
This extension gives beneficiaries until March 15 to withdraw their funds or risk losing access to all the money in their accounts.
Additionally, Motari cautioned that beneficiaries who fail to act within the extended period could be removed from the system, as the government may assume they are no longer eligible.
''By yesterday we realized that there was a huge number of people who had not complied with the directive. So what we did was to extend it for another five days. However, if they do not pick that money, we will simply assume that the person is not there,'' Motari announced.
In a bid to ensure that funds from the kitty are not misused, the PS revealed that the government will use any unclaimed money to enrol additional beneficiaries.
The PS also announced that if the money remains unutilised by June, the department will revert it to the Treasury for alternative allocations in line with legal provisions.
"On the unclaimed money, we will have what we call a clawback. We will roll it back and probably use it to enrol new beneficiaries into the programme. If by June we will not have used that money, we will revert it to the Treasury," Motari added.
The changes come at a time when the government announced in December a shift in the mode of disbursing the funds to mobile money payment platforms.
Justifying the shift, the government stated that the move was necessary to ease the burden on beneficiaries, sparing them from enduring long queues at banking halls to access their funds.
Meanwhile, the PS revealed that since the launch of the new payment method, the government has managed to extend payments to 1.6 million Kenyans.
The PS added that there are elaborate plans to onboard more beneficiaries into the programme to enable the government to support vulnerable groups.
