Families ‘out of streets by Friday’

The Mombasa County inspectorate will start removing street families from the city on Friday if efforts by a local non-governmental organisation to deal with the issue do not materialise.

The county’s inspectorate head Naheed Musa said Monday the programme had been put on hold following requests by Human Rights Agenda, a local NGO, to help the families.

Governor Hassan Joho directed the department to remove the street families three weeks ago but this had not been implemented following the request by the NGO.

“We should have removed them but the NGO gave us a request saying they would hold workshops and initiate programmes to either rehabilitate or help remove them. By this Friday, we shall implement the programme if the NGO does not solve the problem,” said Mr Musa.

According to Huria Chief Executive Officer Yusuf Lule, the street family population in the county had hit 5,000.

Speaking at the closure of a two-day workshop for street families at Darajani Hotel on Sunday, Mr Lule said the aim of the workshop that brought together only 30 people, was to empower them and educate them on the effects of drug abuse and other anti-social acts.

“We want to empower them to be able to start and manage small scale entrepreneurship, pull them out of drug addiction and give them another chance in life,” he said.

He said the 30 are expected to train colleagues on the skills they learnt such as talent promotion and business.

Mr Lule questioned the whereabouts of Sh556 million set aside in the 2014/2015 budget for rehabilitating street families in the county.

“The funds have not benefited anyone. There are no rehab centres built, no awareness campaigns, no explanation. We want to be told where the funds went,” he said.

Churches, which were charged with the responsibility of handling the funds, should come out in the open and say how the money was spent, said Mr Lule.