- Kibicho says Huduma Namba was never meant for the management of elections and can only be used by the IEBC to positively identify voters.
- The PS pointed an accusing finger at a former director general of Immigration for fueling the misinformation around the Huduma project.
Image: EZEKIEL AMING'A
The state has discredited several controversies surrounding the rollout of Huduma Namba, including claims that it would be used to tamper with election.
Interior PS Karanja Kibicho rubbished claims that the National Integrated Identity Management System has a link to the August 9 General Election.
The PS also dismissed fears that the Huduma Namba project would lead to the disbandment of the Immigration Services department.
Appearing before the National Assembly Security Committee on Thursday, Kibicho said the main aim of Huduma is to create a database for positive identification of Kenyans.
“There is no plan to kill the Immigration Department and its functions as the laws guiding its operations remain. We are only changing the institutional framework to deal with data from one source,” he added.
The PS said the Civil Registration Department will continue registering births and deaths, NRB will continue issuing IDs and Immigration will continue issuing passports.
Kibicho spoke to the MPs during deliberations on the Huduma Bill, 2022.
The PS however said Huduma Namba was never meant for the management of elections and can only be used by the IEBC to positively identify voters.
“If they want, they can. If they don’t want, they can live with the data they are not sure of,” the PS said on the allegations that the system was a ploy to rig election.
He said he was elated that the lies have been outlived by truths that show the system has nothing to do with election.
“Even registration of voters has closed hence there are no longer references to it. The detractors are the ones selling lies that we want to remove immigration officers and make them jobless,” Kibicho said.
The PS pointed an accusing finger at a former director general of Immigration for fueling the misinformation around the Huduma project.
“The director was attending meetings in person. He never missed a meeting. When the current officeholder was hired, he still attended meetings.
“This process had consultations. The number of public participations forums we did are uncountable. We even went through a court process where I went to court to explain these issues,” Kibicho said.
The PS said nothing would change in the administration of the Civil Registration, National Registration Bureau, and Immigrations as the directors report to his office even in the current arrangement.
“What we are seeing is a push to create an institution for management of data. Directors answer to Interior PS. I am already responsible for immigration,” he said.
Kibicho said the Jubilee administration ventured into the system as the national civil registration database was infiltrated by millions of fake records. At least 38 million Kenyans have been registered.
“Kenya has not had a digital register since independence. Huduma is to help with the infiltration of our system. We have people with falsified birth certificates and national IDs through which they could get passports,” he said.
The PS also dismissed claims that the government was using the system to invade peoples’ privacy saying ID registration is more intrusive yet no one has raised concerns about it.
“This rumour that the government is asking for personal information is misplaced. It is asking for information that is already in government. There is nothing intrusive in asking for the information,” he said.
Kibicho said the governments’ aim is to “create one source of truth” and provide a platform where a person would be given a unique identifier at birth for use throughout their life.
“Who stops us from making that number be the same, so that the birth certificate number follows you to the death certificate. That is what the government is trying to do,” he said.
This was even as members of the House committee chaired by Limuru MP Peter Mwathi raised concerns on why the departments’ officers were being lumped under one identity – NIIMS officers.
They also asked why the government did not consider consolidating the already digitised data by various state agencies such as KRA, NHIF and NSSF.
On this, Kibicho said, “KRA data is digitised but they have no positive ID of the taxpayers. They can inquire from the Huduma database and see if the person before them is the right one.”
He said the NHIF is among institutions that have run their database through the NIIMS and picked about five million falsified records.
(Edited by Bilha Makokha)