Kilifi North constituency is listing all Pemba community members in Kilifi county.
MP Owen Baya said the registration is to make sure the community regarded as stateless gets recognised as citizens.
Speaking in his office on Thursday, Baya said the county has 1,800 to 2,000 members of the Pemba community.
“Most of them were born here in Kilifi and they know no other home. Most of them have not been able to get identification documents because of their statelessness. This has hindered them from investment,” Baya said.
The MP said the registration will done ahead of the August 31 deadline when every stateless person must be captured.
“We have already registered 300 of them and the exercise will go on until we capture all of them. If we will not have captured them by August 31, we will seek to amend the law so we can extend the period by at least one year," he said.
"The Pemba are the best fishermen we have around. They have passed their expertise to our people. They go to our hospitals and they need to be recognised as Kenyans."
The MP asked why the Pemba were left out when the Makonde were recognised as Kenyans "yet they came to Kenya at the same time".
Pemba community Kilifi county chairman Ali Mshame said the first group came to Kenya in 1935 from Tanzania.
Mshame narrated how they have faced problems accessing government services for lack of identification documents.
“Most of us are descendants. Those who came from Tanzania are mostly dead and buried in Kenya. Our children cannot get employment because of lack of identity cards. Some have been barred from doing national examinations due to lack of birth certificates,” the chairman said.
The MP will write to the Education and Interior ministries and the Kenya National Examination Council to allow stateless people to sit their exams without birth certificates.
Edited by R.Wamochie
