Lack of birth certificates among children below 18 years has affected Huduma Namba registration exercise in Trans Nzoia County.
The Trans Nzoia County Commissioner (CC), Samson Ojwang pointed out that lack of birth certificate booklets had slowed down issuance of birth certificates which has in turn hindered parents from registering their children for Huduma Namba.
A birth certificate is among the primary documents needed for registration of the NIIMs for children and national
identification cards for Kenyan adults and alien card or passports for foreigners.
The CC who was addressing members of the county’s disaster committee disclosed that at least 491,465
residents had registered with the programme by Monday.
The government had expected to register at least 951,584 people by this time in the county.
Trans Nzoia is projecting to register at least 1.2 people during the exercise that has been scheduled to end on May 17.
‘’We need like one thousand booklets for the birth certificates… we want the government press to hasten printing of the birth certificates which is slowing the registration process,’’ he said.
He advised registration officers to use primary documents to register, adding that other supporting documents were making the process take a longer time.
“We have had cases where a family of like 10 people for instance takes two hours to register…, this is caused by sometimes people having many supporting documents which end up delaying the process,” he said.
According to Ojwang, though other documents support the registration exercise, residents can be registered using
primary documents since a primary document such as an ID will still identify one in these other registrations for instance driving license and NHIF card.
“When one person takes a minimum of 20 minutes then it means that few people will be served and avoiding many such supporting documents will reduce on the time,’’ said Ojwang.
He warned that those who will not have primary documents will be locked out of the exercise.
Speaking at the same function, Huduma Centre Manager, Joash Abong’o reported that at least 3, 026 national identity cards lay uncollected at the centre.
“I want to inform those who applied for the national identification cards that they are ready for collection,” he said.
We are currently just taking 14 days to process identification cards and anyone who applied two weeks ago should come to huduma centre and collect the card,” he said.
The CC clarified that biometrics of finger prints and facial were being carried out on people above six years and not for everybody as a section of the population is alleging.
By Pauline Ikanda
