Orphans and Vulnerable Children's (OVC) cash transfer allocated for needy families in Mavoko Sub-county by the government in the previous budget is inadequate.
This has been disclosed by the region's District Children Officer (DCO), Faith Kamau, who said there was need for the treasury to allocate more funds for the sub-county in the next disbursement.
“The amount of money allocated for Mavoko Sub-county for OVC cash transfer project when it was launched in the region last year is very little,” said Kamau.
The officer, who was addressing journalists in her office on Thursday said there was increasing demand for needy families that required the fund's support.
Kamau said though the national government, through her office managed to support 366 children who had been registered for the program, the demand had overwhelmingly increased.
She said her office kept receiving various cases of children who so poor that they could not even go to school since they lived under pathetic conditions.
According to her, most of such needy children hailed from child headed, single mother or elderly mothers headed families, who could not support their basic needs.
The officer said she had lots of reports that such conditions and hardships had exposed many children from the region to child labour, as most of them had been forced to drop out of school and fend for their families.
She said the situation could be better if the government increased the amount of the transfer fund for the sub-county to increase the number of beneficiaries from 366 to 1000 in next disbursement.