Nyeri residents who make applications for official government documents from the Huduma Centre have been urged to collect them to avoid creating a pile of uncollected documents at the centre.
Speaking to KNA, Nyeri Huduma Centre manager Florence Ndunge says a total of 10,786 documents have been lying uncollected at the facility, with some dating as far back as the year 2021 when the centre started providing services through tills for different government departments.
“Our main challenge is we do not have storage space. That means if these documents remain in our possession for long, they take up space that is meant for new requests,” said Ndunge.
She said the bulk of the documents were from the Civil Registration department which issues birth and death certificates, the National Registration Bureau (national identity cards), and the National Transport and Safety Authority.
Ndunge also attributed the backlog to the tendency by Kenyans to ignore text notifications alerting them about the progress of their application.
She said that the government had introduced the automated text message alert system to save applicants the trouble of physically visiting the government offices to check on the application status but regretted that the service was not being utilized.
“A lot of these documents take between two and three weeks to be processed after which the applicant receives a text message alert on their mobile phones. We have had instances where an applicant walks in several months after receiving the text to collect their documents,” she said.
“My appeal to those who have received such an alert to work together with the government by ensuring they collect their documents from us immediately the message comes through so that we make room for the new ones,” added Ndunge.
By Wangari Mwangi
