EDITORIAL: Ensure stipend succeeds – Business Daily

As the State prepares to offer a bi-weekly stipend for the urban poor ravaged by Covid-19, it is important that the selection of the beneficiaries be above board to ensure, first that the money reaches the intended recipients and two achieves the intended purpose.

We commend the State for allocating a budget that will cushion hundreds of thousands of poor households whose heads will receive Sh2,000 every two weeks for purchase of basic goods like food. However, this noble plan will come a cropper if the selection of the beneficiaries is not done in a transparent manner.

Such welfare plans have been infiltrated by able people sneaked in by corrupt official including chiefs and their assistants.

This time round the stakes are high given the adverse effects that coronavirus has delivered on poor homes.

Measures taken to combat the global pandemic have seen 92 percent of Nairobi County’s low-income residents suffer reduced incomes, forcing them to cut back on essential purchases, including food.

A recent survey by Tifa Research has for the first time revealed the stark reality that the economic impact of the curfew, closure of businesses like bars and travel restrictions have had on the capital’s most vulnerable populace.

Therefore, there is an urgent need to shield the poor from the adverse effects of the pandemic, which makes the selection of beneficiaries even more critical.