Lack of National Identity cards, birth certificates and poor network coverage has prevented counties from achieving their Huduma Namba registration targets.
However, Moyale Sub County burst its figure by more than 8,650 persons as the mass registration came to an end on Saturday.
Some 89,240 people were registered in Moyale sub-county during the national mass registration for the Huduma Namba which was extended for one more week by the president to enable more Kenyans to register.
The Moyale Assistant County Commissioner One (ACC I), Victor Wanjohi while talking to KNA on Monday when he received the Huduma Namba registration materials from the registration and assistant officers said they had targeted a total of 80,590 but there was an increase of 8,650 which is 110.73 percent during the closure of the exercise on Saturday.
“We could have registered more than 110 percent but among the challenges were lack of birth certificates and national Identity Cards (ID) which locked out majority of residents of Moyale from the Huduma Namba registration exercise whereby for those who are 18 years and over they are seeking to be issued with identity cards and have to undergo a vetting process so that they can be issued with identity cards” Wanjohi said.
Among other challenges were poor network coverage at the grassroot levels where transmission of the data captured took a lot of time and sometimes the registration assistants were being forced to move up to Moyale town for transmission.
Meanwhile, Kitui County registered 975,432 residents in the just concluded Huduma Namba mass biometric data capture, despite a variance of 550, 998 of the total projection of 1,526, 430 population.
Speaking to the press on Monday in his office, acting Kitui County Commissioner, Jackson Ole Chuta said that the variance was occasioned by the rural-urban migration of a section of the populace captured from the 2009 population census.
“The data used for the target population was based on the 2009 Housing and Population Census. Majority of the people have died since then due to natural attrition or other causes leaving a huge variation in the 10 year-window,” he said.
He lamented that some of the residents lacked valuable documents such as identity cards and birth certificates which were critical during the data capture exercise.
“Those who lacked these vital documents absconded from participating in this critical exercise. Some displayed don’t care attitude despite concerted efforts to ensure everyone residing in this county was registered,” said the administrator.
Elsewhere, a total of 495,348 people in Laikipia County have been registered with National Integrated Management System (NIIMS) also known as huduma Namba.
The Laikipia County Commissioner, Onesmus Kyatha said this is against a set target of 648,588, intended to have been registered by the deadline of May 25, 2019.
While speaking to KNA in his Nanyuki office on Monday, Kyatha thanked all the stakeholders involved in the registration which stands at 76.3 per cent and admitted the turnout was good.
By KNA Team
