Kiambu County governor Ferdinand Waititu has issued over Sh 100 million to over 5,000 recovering alcohol addicts as a sendoff package bringing the one year ‘Kaa sober’ program to a climax. 5,122 youth graduated on Tuesday with three-month short technical courses, offered in the county polytechnics.
The program has, since inception, cost the county close to Sh1 billion. “The program has been costly as the county has been spending about Sh2 million a day,” said Waititu as he handed out certificates of completion at Ndumberi grounds in Kiambu town.
After assuming office, Waititu, in a bid to help the many youths addicted to alcoholism, started a county alcoholic addict’s rehabilitation programme called “Kaa Sober” on February 4, 2018.
The program, which engaged youths in casual labour in return for daily wages, started off with 100 youths and illicit brew dealers from Makwa and Gatukuyu villages in Gatundu North, who were fed up with drinking and wanted to change.
They cleared bushes, collected garbage, unclogged trenches and drainage systems, and raided and destroyed illicit brew dens in their villages. In return, each addict has been getting Sh400 a day, with Sh100 set aside for breakfast and lunch.
They also attended afternoon counselling sessions for free. Waititu said that the county has been grappling with a plethora of dingy bars and illicit brews dens, which have turned the youth into “zombies” and killing “18 to 20 people a month.
Encouraged by its impact in the 60 wards within the county, Waititu says he will roll out Jijenge funds in two weeks, an initiative that will see the recovered addicts access cheap loans to start income generating projects.
Although beneficiaries of the program say they are fully recovered, some were seen drinking, raising concerns as to whether the program achieved its intended purpose.
“The program has transformed lives. Many unmarried men and women have found their best other half’s after I started the initiative. We will not stop at this…the graduands will enjoy Jijenge fund loans,” he said.
Waititu also dismissed Kiambu leaders have been critical of the program with claims that it is unsustainable and the governor did not consult them beforehand.
“This is my project. Other leaders were elected to start their own and thereby I owe no one answers on the running of Kaa sober,” said the governor who had declared war on illicit brews and alcoholism in the county in the 2017 campaigns.
Soon after winning, Waititu signed it into law the County Alcoholic Drinks Control Act, which saw bar owners sue the county for infiltrating on business operations.