The Ministry of Interior has announced a new plan by the government to pay village elders a monthly stipend of KSh3,000.
Appearing before the National Assembly Departmental Committee on Administration and Internal Security during scrutiny of the 2026/2027 budget estimates on Wednesday, May 13, Interior Principal Secretary Raymond Omollo said the programme would benefit about 110,000 village elders nationwide.
PS Omollo told the committee that the Ministry of Interior had already developed a policy framework and criteria for the identification of village elders, following years of consultations and public participation.
“The conversation about village elders began in 2016, and the House actually gave directions to the ministry. It has taken almost 10 years to get us here,” said Omollo.
The Interior PS credited the committee for supporting the allocation, saying that without its intervention, the funds would not have been included in the budget estimates.
According to the Interior PS, the KSh3,000 monthly stipend to village elders will begin in the next financial year, pending final approval of the policy.
“Our expectation is that we will be giving a stipend of Sh3,000 to each village elder, and the amount that has been provisioned for will be almost enough to take us through the whole year,” he said.
PS Omollo clarified that only elders not already benefiting from other state support programmes, such as the social safety net scheme for the elderly or community health promoter initiatives, would qualify for the stipend.
Members of the committee welcomed the proposal; however, they pushed for an increase in the proposed payment.
Narok West MP Gabriel Tongoyo, who chairs the committee, said while the proposal was a major step forward, the stipend should ideally match what community health promoters receive.
“We had nothing before, but maybe we should have put them at par with the community health promoters,” said Tongoyo.
Teso North MP Oku Kaunya sought clarification on the legal and administrative structure under which village elders would operate, saying the framework should clearly define their reporting hierarchy within the National Administration system.
“I hope they are anchored within the National Administration structure. If that is the case, then I would support the idea that they need to have an enhanced amount of Ksh5,000, which would be reasonable,” said Kaunya.
Tongoyo acknowledged that increasing the stipend to Ksh5,000 would significantly raise the budgetary requirement to between Ksh5.5 billion and Sh6 billion annually, but said the matter could still be pursued with the Budget Committee and the National Treasury.
