Kindiki: How ID Upgrade Will Be Different From Failed Huduma Namba

Interior Cabinet Secretary (CS) Kithure Kindiki on Wednesday, April 12 teased the possibility of the upgrade of the National Identification Card (ID) system which will address the issues that the Huduma Namba project which stalled under former President Uhuru Kenyatta failed to address.

While appearing before the National Assembly, Kindiki indicated that there was a consideration by the Cabinet to rework the Universal Personal Identifier (UPI) within the next one or two weeks.

Under the new UPI system, a child who is born in Kenya will be assigned a UPI which they are allowed to use in school and anywhere else that is required, which manifests into their ID number once they turn 18 years old.

There will also be a UPI system that will accommodate adults who are seeking IDs upon attaining the minimum age of 18.

A person having their photo taken during a past Huduma Namba registration. /FILE

"Going forward, before Cabinet is a policy brief, a Cabinet brief which is under consideration on the Universal Personal Identifier (UPI) and I think in the next one or two weeks it will be disposed of so that we converge two things. One is that every child in Kenya gets a UPI at birth which becomes their number in school or whatever number they require and when they are 18, that number is their ID number.

"Then at the same time and in parallel, another UPI for adults who are getting IDs. So you have a UPI at birth and for the existing, because that one, by the time the first adult will use the UPI, it will be 18 years from when we commence," he addressed.

At the same time, Kindiki hinted at the migration of the current ID system into a new generation ID for adults, which will aim to solve the glaring issues that were abandoned when the Huduma Namba project was in place.

"In the meantime, we are migrating, we are considering subject to approval by Cabinet, migrating the current ID we have into a fourth-generation ID, which is the UPI for adults, which will take away the question of Huduma Namba which was not solving the kind of problems we intend to solve," he added.

National Assembly Speaker, Moses Wetangula, echoed queries from the House regarding single mothers who are unable to produce copies of the ID of the father of their children during the application of an ID.

"It is no longer a requirement of the law for the registration of a child to include both parents. It is now possible to register one parent if you are a one-parent child," Kindiki responded.

President William Ruto on Thursday, January 27 ordered ICT Cabinet Secretary (CS) Eliud Owalo to oversee the creation of a digital identity (ID) similar to the Huduma Namba, by the end of this year.

Ruto had blamed Uhuru's government for the series of failures that led to the Huduma Namba project being shelved after it drew controversy.

"I have asked the Ministry of ICT to work on a digital identity so that the big Huduma (Namba) thing that never was, we can finally have as Kenya a digital identity.

"I have told my friend Eliud (Owalo) that by the end of this year, Kenyans must be able to identify themselves digitally. It is not the work of the government to issue IDs, it is the work of the government to identify Kenyans," he said.

Owalo on Tuesday, January 10 revealed that the President was keen on exploring a similar project to the Huduma Namba while unveiling its digitisation programme, arguing that digitisation was key in centralising all government services and reducing the hassle of Kenyans trooping to government offices in person to get national Identification cards (ID).

"The intention of Huduma Namba was good because it was trying to ensure that we have a digital identity that could facilitate virtual transactions between the government and the public as far as the provision of services is concerned," Owalo stated during an interview on Citizen TV.

"It is the same thing we are going to do as we roll out this government digitisation process because it is still imperative that we don’t need as Kenyans to go to government offices flashing identity cards."

To avoid witnessing the same pitfalls that crippled the Huduma Namba system, Owalo announced that they would embark on implementing procedures so that the digitisation programme is in line with various countries' laws.

President William Ruto poses for a photo during a past Huduma Namba registration exercise. /CITIZEN DIGITAL