Parents in Narok County have been urged to register their children immediately they are born to avoid lengthy processes of acquiring the important document later.
Narok Civil Registrar of Births and Deaths Kenneth Nyamweya said long queues are being witnessed at their premises because of late registration that requires more documents for verification.
Nyamweya spoke at a public baraza held at Olchoro area where he advised the residents to register their newborn children three months after birth to cut down on costs and time.
“If you come with a birth notification from the hospital, you take less than one hour to get a birth certificate because it is easy to counter check the documents from the hospital and the verification slip,” he said.
The officer lamented that most of the people visiting his office did not have any birth notification document or clinic cards forcing his officers to send them back to collect more verification documents from the chiefs.
“If your child is born at home or in the hospital, please come to our offices immediately so that we can be able to register them. It will be cheaper for you and us. Sometime the mother is still weak and cannot make a lot of movement, but the child’s father can walk in the registration office and get the birth certificate of the newborn,” he reiterated.
The officer reminded residents that a birth notification document can also be taken to the Huduma Center where they process the birth certificates.
“I noticed that in our community, most people wait until the schools start asking for birth certificates for exam registration. By the time they walk to our offices, they meet a multitude of other people who are coming to collect the same document. This makes the process very tedious for them,” he said.
A birth certificate is an important document because a child without a birth certificate cannot access his or her basic human rights like being admitted to a public school, Insurance cover, receive inheritance, access legal systems, and get education bursaries among others.
By Ann Salaton
