Nominated Senator Beatrice Oyomo on Wednesday, May 14, asked President William Ruto to introduce former Prime Minister Raila Odinga’s Ksh6,000 monthly stipend promise in light of the two leaders entering into a political agreement.
While speaking at the Senate during a grilling session involving the Cooperatives Cabinet Secretary, Wycliffe Oparanya, Oyomo tasked the CS to bring up the matter that was part of Raila’s campaign manifesto in the build-up to the 2022 General Elections.
Oyomo observed that since the two leaders were now in a broad-based government, Ruto could now pick up the item on Raila’s manifesto that was centred around social protection.
“Honourable CS, now that we are a broad-based government, is it possible that you can pay the Ksh6,000 that was promised to Kenyans as in our manifesto?” Oyomo quipped.
The Ksh6,000 monthly stipend promise was a contentious item in the former PM’s manifesto, but was aimed towards individuals and households living in abject poverty.
As per Raila, an estimated one to 1.5 million households were to benefit, with his regime, if elected, set to spend between Ksh6 billion and Ksh9 billion monthly, which translates to about Ksh72 and Ksh108 billion annually on social protection.
The social protection programme was among the three pillars of the former Prime Minister's presidential campaign. The other two are the creation of five million jobs through manufacturing and providing quality healthcare for all Kenyans under a programme dubbed 'Baba Care'.
The ambitious project was to be done without raising taxes, with many questioning the practicality of the proposed programme. However, the former PM explained it was a practice common in foreign nations across the world and in Africa.
Further, Raila affirmed that the Ksh6,000 monthly promise to poor households would be funded through budget cuts as well as money recovered from the proceeds of graft.
According to Raila, the Ksh100 billion projected cost would involve all ministries taking 25 per cent budget cuts. This would be added to the Ksh37 billion already in place.
In order to sustain the social welfare plan, the ODM leader stated that his government would focus on mass job opportunities for the youth in his first year in office, cut government spending, restructure the government in a bid to reduce expenditure, and seal graft loopholes.
The project, however, did not take off as Raila ended up losing the 2022 polls to Ruto, who had his own Bottom-up Economic Transformation Agenda (BETA) model that was focused on economic empowerment and sustainability.
