Implementation of House Resolution on Establishment of Civil Registration Centers on Course,State Department Affirms
The State Department for Immigration and Citizen Services has affirmed a three-year plan to set up Civil Registration Services across all the 290 Constituencies in the Country.
Currently, the MPs learnt, the Civil Registration Services are operational in one Hundred and Fifty-nine Sub-Counties, with one hundred and thirty-one offices yet to be operationalized.
This was confirmed by Mr. Paul Mwangemi, Secretary of Civil Registration Services, when he appeared before the Committee on Implementation, on behalf of the Principal Secretary, Amb. (Prof.) Julius Bitok.
The officials were responding to a question by Hon. Mary Wamaua (Maragwa) in regards to the status of establishment of database centers in all Civil Registration Centers, for purposes of storing all the necessary information required for issuance of birth certificates to all children.
The session Chaired by the Vice-Chairperson of the Committee, Hon. Rose Mumo (Makueni County) was also briefed that in all the operational sub-counties, the Department had established databases, although some are manual.
Mr. Mwangemi also apprised the MPs that the State Department had embarked on digitizing and automating its processes to ensure efficient storage, application and processing of certificates.
Further, the Committee heard that the Civil Registration Department has also implemented a web-based system to allow members of the public to be issued with a Unique Personal Identifier (UPI) dubbed Maisha Namba, at birth.
“We want to make sure that right from birth, when a child is sregistered, they are also assigned a unique number, which will be used as a reference number and is linked to the birth records”, Mr. Mwangemi explained.
“The same number will be used when acquiring a National Identity Card Number, upon reaching the age of 18.This will help address issues of identity theft”, He added.
The implementation of this system has however been challenged in court, and if cleared, it will ease access of services as the UPI number will allow integration to different services.
The idea of a UPI number was commended by the Vice-Chair, who noted that it will ease Citizens’ access to services as and when they need them.
Hon. Mark Mwenje (Embakasi West), sought to know how far the process is in Nairobi, especially in highly populated areaslike Eastlands.
“In Nairobi, we have the National Registry serving the whole Country and the Nairobi Registry serving the Nairobi area. Earlier on, we used to have challenges of long queues but right now we have five operational Huduma Centers which have assisted to decongest Nairobi”, replied Mr. Mwangemi.
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