Over 4000 identity cards are lying uncollected at 14 centres across Vihiga County, the County Registration Officer (CRO) Mark Simiyu says, calling on owners to collect them.
The CRO says it is disappointing that even after the registration services were improved to include a short message service (SMS) to notify identity card applicants when the cards are ready, the applicants still do not immediately go to collect the document.
Mr. Simiyu says out of the uncollected 4,468 cards, 2,235 belong to the persons who were Not Previously Registered (NPR), while 2, 233 are either duplicates of lost cards or those for corrections.
The CRO stated that there are 1,129 in Vihiga sub-county, 992 in Hamisi, 615 in Sabatia, 481 in Emuhaya, 324 in Luanda and 927 cards at the Huduma centre in Mbale town ready for collection.
The officer has appealed to applicants to be regularly visiting the centres at which they applied for the essential document so that they pick them.
He added that nowadays they have improved the service whereby a Short Message Service (SMS) code is sent to the applicant informing them that the card is ready for collection.
The registrar of persons, however, lamented that despite the SMS code prompt, the recipients were not responding accordingly.
The officer at the same time appealed to the people who have attained 18 years to visit their nearest centres and apply for the national identification document.
By Sammy Mwibanda
