There is a need to create new offices at the six constituencies of Turkana county to save residents the agony and cost of moving to Lodwar.
Residents, including the elderly and the sick, go as far as Kibish, which is more than 250km from Lodwar to process these certificates for their children. Sometimes they are forced to spend more time in town because the few office personnel are handling large numbers of people or have travelled to other subcounties to address issues related to the document.
It’s illogical and traumatising to see senior citizens of these areas struggling to access government services that are essentially supposed to be availed at their doorstep with the current technology.
While we appreciate the establishment of a Huduma Centre in Lodwar that has fast-tracked access and processing of services, its equally important to ask the national government to set up these government facilities at the subcounty levels to enable timely and accurate data, especially of the pastoralist communities.
These communities risk missing government services as they migrate from one place to another in search of pasture and water. Local administrators in Turkana have done their best in sensitising the community on the need to have the important documents that include a national identity card and birth certificates among others.
Residents are making an effort to pursue the documents but are discouraged by the troubles they have to encounter to own an ID or a birth certificate. It’s now upon the government to move with speed and establish the centres in the county.
This way, planning for constituencies will be easier knowing correct data on their numbers and even make it easier to solve boundary conflicts.
Turkana
