Treasury is depositing Kshs 45, 000 to the mobile wallet of Nairobi residents in Kenya.
The post urges residents to confirm their MPESA details with the Treasury in order to receive the funds apparently meant to assist them to cater for their needs while they stay at home due to the COVID-19 crisis., However, there has been no communication of the sort by the ministry, either on its website or through its Facebook and Twitter accounts., If this were true, it would have made headlines in major news publications in the country. No news outlet has covered this., Treasury Cabinet Secretary Ukur Yattani has, however, said the government is realigning its budget to make funds available to mitigate the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic., And although President Uhuru Kenyatta set up The COVID-19 Emergency Response Fund Board to support the government’s efforts in assisting vulnerable communities with their immediate needs, such as food, the distribution approach, which also includes cash transfers, does not require beneficiaries to get in touch with the National Treasury directly., Rather, it is based on a defined national needs assessment matrix and provided for under the Ministry of Labour and Social Protection., According to the guidelines, assessment of beneficiaries is done through local county and sub-county offices and a network of Beneficiary Welfare Committees (BWCs) in each location. Additional support is provided by the local administration, including chiefs, their assistants and community members., PesaCheck has looked into a claim that the National Treasury is depositing upkeep money to the mobile wallets of Nairobi residents during COVID-19 and finds it to be FALSE., This post is part of an ongoing series of PesaCheck fact-checks examining content marked as potential misinformation on Facebook and other social media platforms., By partnering with Facebook and similar social media platforms, third-party fact-checking organisations like PesaCheck are helping to sort fact from fiction. We do this by giving the public deeper insight and context to posts they see in their social media feeds., Have you spotted what you think is fake news or false information on Facebook? Here’s how you can report. And, here’s more information on PesaCheck’s methodology for fact-checking questionable content., This fact-check was written by Fact-Checker Simon Muli and edited by News Editor Enock Nyariki., PesaCheck is East Africa’s first public finance fact-checking initiative. It was co-founded by Catherine Gicheru and Justin Arenstein, and is being incubated by the continent’s largest civic technology and data journalism accelerator: Code for Africa. It seeks to help the public separate fact from fiction in public pronouncements about the numbers that shape our world, with a special emphasis on pronouncements about public finances that shape government’s delivery of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) public services, such as healthcare, rural development and access to water / sanitation. PesaCheck also tests the accuracy of media reportage. To find out more about the project, visit pesacheck.org., PesaCheck is a joint initiative of Code for Africa, through its innovateAFRICA fund, with additional funding support from the International Budget Partnership (Kenya) and Twaweza, in partnership with a coalition of local media organisations, and the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ)., Written by, Written by
FALSE: Treasury is not sending Ksh45,000 upkeep to Nairobi residents during COVID-19 crisis