“Ruto promised to include more beneficiaries—without increasing the budget. The result? A ballooned list of dependents with no money to support them.”

Report by Serah Kiraitu | Diaspora Times Correspondent-Kisumu

Over 1.76 million Kenyans—elderly citizens, orphans, vulnerable children, and persons with severe disabilities—are staring at an uncertain and potentially devastating future after the National Assembly’s Labour and Social Protection Committee confirmed a catastrophic Sh16.958 billion budget shortfall in the Inua Jamii cash transfer programme. This financial vacuum threatens payments between March and June 2025, pushing Kenya’s most marginalized populations to the brink of destitution. But this is no accident of nature—it is the direct consequence of a reckless policy directive by none other than President William Ruto himself.

Ruto’s decree to expand Inua Jamii sounded noble to the cameras: more vulnerable Kenyans would be added to the lifeline programme. But the devil, as always, lay in the details. There was no budget increment to match the expansion. In other words, the President created a larger pool of dependents without adding water to the well. What followed was inevitable—a collapse. This isn’t leadership. It’s sabotage parading as compassion.

Behind the cold numbers are real people now trapped in despair.

Kimani (not his real name), a 73-year-old widower from Nyandarua, has not received his stipend since February 2025. When he went to inquire at the local assistant chief’s office, he was told his name had been dropped—the explanation? He was “deemed capable of supporting himself.”

“No one came to ask me anything,” Kimani said, his voice cracking. “I survive on one meal a day. My legs can’t carry me to the shamba. I depend on neighbors and church well-wishers. What survey did they do to decide I’m okay?”

Another victim, Geoffrey Karani (also a pseudonym), shared similar frustration.

“I was receiving KSh 2,000 a month. But for two months now, nothing. When I asked, I was told to go see ‘people’ who might reconsider my case. What does that mean? That I have to bribe someone to be seen as poor enough?”

This is a disturbing new trend. In Nakuru, Mary Wanjiku, a 68-year-old grandmother raising her orphaned grandchildren, was recently removed from the programme. “They said I have land. But the land I have is rocky. We can’t grow anything. We’re lucky if we eat twice a week,” she said.

In Kisii, a single mother whose nine-year-old daughter has cerebral palsy was also struck off the list.

“They said I can fend for myself. I sell vegetables by the roadside. Some days I go home with Sh50. Is that enough to care for a disabled child? They never even came to see our home.”

Multiple families across counties are reporting being abruptly cut off. The explanations are vague: “we’re cleaning the list,” “some people don’t qualify,” “go talk to the sub-county office.” But insiders hint at a shadowy re-registration process that favors those willing to “cooperate.”

A source in Kisumu County told The Diaspora Times:

“If you know someone, you’re back on the list. If you don’t, tough luck. We all know what that means—bribes.”

Meanwhile, the government refuses to release the criteria used to disqualify beneficiaries. No audits have been shared. No appeals process exists. The supposed “clean-up” has morphed into a purge of the voiceless.

President Ruto, who often brands himself a “hustler”, claiming to understand the struggle of the poor, stands exposed. You cannot expand a social safety net while slashing its lifelines. You cannot pretend to uplift the downtrodden while kneeling on their backs to impress foreign investors.

And while the elderly beg for their stipends, and mothers of disabled children skip meals, Ruto readies himself for yet another U.S. tour—this time to pursue talks about Grammy Awards and global music studios. The irony is suffocating. A nation where hospital beds are tagged “out of service” now dreams of Grammy partnerships? This is painting a broken fence white to impress guests, even as the rot beneath worsens with every rain.

And if that wasn’t enough, even the most basic social safety nets have been ripped away. Among the most devastating cuts is the removal of Linda Mama, a maternal health programme introduced by former First Lady Margaret Kenyatta to assist women during childbirth. Today, desperate mothers are being told about the much-hyped Social Health Authority (SHA), a system that exists mostly in government brochures and propaganda, not in reality.

The backlash has gone far beyond civil society. MPs themselves are now speaking out. Githunguri MP Gathoni Wamucomba has emerged as one of the fiercest critics of Linda Mama’s abrupt termination. In a passionate address to Parliament, she lamented the cruelty of leaving expectant women to fend for themselves in hospitals with no supplies and no dignity.

“Thousands of mothers face the risk of giving birth in humiliating, unsafe, and undignified conditions. They are forced to beg, borrow, or die silently—all because a working program was scrapped without any functional replacement,” she declared.

Wamucomba’s protest reflects deeper cracks within the Ruto administration. Even his own allies can no longer ignore the human cost of this misguided governance. The removal of Linda Mama has become a national symbol of betrayal—clear proof that while the president seeks international glory in Haiti, the DRC, and Hollywood, he has turned his back on Kenyan mothers and babies.

The Inua Jamii disaster and the death of Linda Mama are not isolated failures. They are the symptoms of a governance virus—a deep-rooted culture of populism, PR stunts, and indifference to the suffering of real Kenyans.

When a government fails to care for its most vulnerable—its elderly, its poor, its disabled, its mothers—it forfeits the right to call itself a democracy. It becomes a hollow, failing state, surviving on spectacle, silence, and spin.

This betrayal must not pass quietly. Every Kenyan with a conscience—whether in power, in opposition, in civil society, or in the diaspora—must raise their voice. This is not just about missed stipends or failed programs. This is about whether Kenya still sees its people as human beings, or merely props in a performative presidency.

History will not forget this moment. And the silence of those who could have spoken out will be as shameful as the decisions that caused this suffering.