Thika Chiefs Given 7 Days To Produce List Of All Youth Without IDs In Their Areas

Thika West Deputy County Commissioner Tom Anjere has given chiefs and their assistants 7 days to make a forensic audit of all eligible youth and residents without National Identity Cards in their jurisdiction.

Speaking at the closure of a 12-day mobile national ID card registration exercise at the Kristina Wangari Garden in Thika Town, Anjere said that they had registered about 2000 new applicants.

“I would like to take this juncture to thank all the officers who went round every part of this district for the last 12 days sensitising the youth on the significance of acquiring the national ID. About 2000 youth have registered though it has not met our target,” said Anjere.

He said that one of the reasons for the shortfall was that some areas had not been well covered due to the scarcity of time and the inability of some of the people to get that information.

“The government plans to kick off a second phase of the ID registration soon that will target secondary schools and those areas that were not well covered in this first phase. I therefore give each chief and their assistants 7 days to make a list of every home that has youth who have attained 18 years but have no ID cards so as ease the process of registering them in the second phase,” he said.

He reminded every chief and their assistants that it was their duty and responsibility to know all the people who resided in their area of jurisdiction.

He told the residents that the exercise was free of charge and that it was their constitutional right. He appealed to the village elders, ‘Nyumba Kumi’ representatives and the community policing officials to liaise with their chiefs so as to ensure that all youth who had attained the age of 18 years in their areas have been registered.

He said that the exercise will continue uninterrupted though this time it will be done at the District Registrar of Persons’ office.

He promised all those who had applied that their IDs would be ready in a fortnight. He therefore appealed to them to collect them from the office to avoid flocking the place with unclaimed IDs.

“When it is ready, come and collect your ID so as to use it in acquiring all the services that are entitled to you. It is good to note that your ID is social-economical and it is political. And very soon when the government re-starts the NYS programme, your ID card will be very essential in getting assimilated because no one can be recognised in such government programmes if they did not have ID cards,” he said.

Thika Registrar of Persons Mr. Jacob Kang’utu said that there were about 2000 uncollected IDs in his possession. He appealed to the owners to collect them and make good use of them.

Chiefs and their assistants have also been issuing these cards from their offices so as to ease the burden of people moving all the way to the district headquarters.

Anjere also notified the residents that the government was in the process of conducting 30-day integrated household survey of its people and therefore called on them to accord the officials assigned to the exercise all the cooperation they needed. The DCC said that lack of such census data slowed down the process through which the government planned for the numbers of people requiring its services. He added that they would target Makongeni area in order to assist them in adding clusters.

The last census in the country was in 2009 where Kenya became the first African country to produce a completely processed census within one year after census.