Interior Principal Secretary Karanja Kibicho has said the government does not intend to compel Kenyans into using the Huduma card to vote in the upcoming general elections slated for August 9.
Kibicho, who appeared before the National Assembly Committee on Administration and National Security on Thursday, stated that the Huduma Number Bill 2021 does not plan to abolish the Immigration, Civil, and National Registration bureaus, as previously claimed.
“Rather, the Bill intends to harmonize the activities of these depts that essentially rely on same information,”
He added that the staff in the aforementioned departments will continue to discharge the essential and distinct activities of each of the departments under the new law. He further rubbished claims that some key departments had been left out of the decisions leading up to the formulation of the bill.
“Contrary to claims, the leadership of the Immigration dept and the two other departments have been duly engaged in consultations leading to the process and the formulation of the Bill,”
The Interior CS pointed out that the Huduma Bill is not looking to collect any new data but rather consolidating the information that is already gathered by various government departments and agencies. He added that the bill will also save various state departments such as the IEBC, NHIF, NTSA and Immigration from high cost of biometric registration as is currently being witnessed.
Kibicho noted that the collection of new Huduma data is integral to cleaning up existing government database registration which he said has been infiltrated by unscrupulous individuals and criminals.
“What the Bill proposes is in line with global trends and has successfully been achieved by Ghana and Estonia among other countries,”
Edited By: Chepkosgei Jedidah