Thika Residents Adhere To The President’s Call For IDs, Voters Cards Acquisition.

Thika West DCC Tom Anjere inspecting some of the uncollected ID cards at the Kiambu Huduma Center in Thika during a voter registration sensitisation tour.

Barely a few hours ahead of the President Uhuru Kenyatta’s visit in the area, the number of residents seeking renewals and replacements of the National Identity Cards (IDs) in Thika West Sub-County has risen threefold, forcing registration desks to work overtime to beat the demand.

There has been an upsurge in the number of people applying for duplicate ID cards at the Thika Huduma center in the past one week with the center, which previously had been registering about 100 ID applicants daily, now having to cope with an average of 300 applications per day.

This can be attributed to the President’s appeal to the Kenya public to register as voters in a bid to participate in the forthcoming General Elections.

Thika West Deputy County Commissioner (DCC) Tom Anjere, who this week visited the center this week, noted that there were over 2, 500 uncollected IDs in the center which currently Kiambu County and parts of Murang’a and Machakos Counties. This he added, made it hard to track some of these applicants.

“We are appealing to the members of the public to assist in the identification of the owners of these IDs and assist them to come and collect them. We have also requested the center manager to avail more clerks to assist in the service delivery,” said Anjere.  

Anjere added that they were considering hiring the services of the National Youth Service (NYS) and had went ahead to talk to the Matuu Regional boss to provide officers who would help sort out these IDs and arrange them according to locations for easier identification.

“In the last one week alone, our chiefs their deputies have managed to issue over 700 IDs and this activity will continue until all the IDs in our possession are handed to their rightful owners. Please note that the issuance of ID Cards is free of charge. Therefore, if anyone ask you for any money, report to my office immediately and disciplinary measures will be taken against them,” cautioned Anjere.  

He said that they had put enough mechanisms in place to ensure that they had cleared the backlog in a weeks’ time.

Among the measures they were employing to achieve their goal, Anjere said, was to ensure that there existed a conducive environment for those who wanted to register as voters to do so as he assured of adequate security in all the registration centers and the environs.

He at the same time warned brokers who were scheming to cash in on this exercise that they would be dealt with by the law enforcement officers.  

“Changing of the polling stations is allowed but currently the focus is on registering new voter, those already registered should go to the IEBC regional offices to change their stations only. We will not entertain any brokers as this will jeopardise the whole exercise,” said Anjere.