Department of Civil Registration has embarked on a digitisation process for birth and death records in Makueni county.
Makueni County Commissioner Maalim Mohammed said the one- month digitisation exercise will increase efficiency in the issuance of birth and death certificates.
Maalim said the exercise will also enable residents to apply for the documents from any part of the country without having to travel to the county of residence or birth.
“The digitisation will improve the delivery of services to the residents who travel for long distances in search of the certificates,” said the county commissioner when he launched the exercise at Kibwezi town on Friday.
He said more than 200 data entry clerks have been contracted by the government to digitise the records.
County Civil Registrar Wycliffe Orata said the digitisation will help rule out cases of cheating and double registration that have been prevalent with the manual records.
‘‘We will have a database for all the records in Makueni from 1992 when the office was operationalised and it will be very easy to retrieve them unlike the manual ones,’’added Orata.
Makueni has only two civil registration offices based in Kibwezi and Wote towns.Residents camp at the offices for several days waiting to be issued with birth and death certificates.
In 2018, parents were forced to spent cold nights at the offices after the Ministry of Education issued a directive that all school doing children should have a birth certificate for the National Education Information Management System.(NEMIS)
By Roselyne Kavoo/Patrick Nyakundi
