Wangechi Purity
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| PSs Julius Bitok (Immigration and Citizen Services) and Raymond Omollo (Interior and National Administration) and other government officials display copies of the new guidelines on the issuance of IDs at the Kenya School of Government, Kabete Image: HANDOUT |
Immigration and Citizen Services Principal Secretary Julius Bitok says chiefs will now be required to take responsibility for foreigners obtaining National Identity Cards in their areas.
He said some of those who get identity cards fraudulently
were terrorists or who turn against Kenyans and attack them or were outlaws on
the run from their native countries engaged in international crime rings.
Bitok made the announcement as he declared that vetting
committees will be dissolved from Wednesday.
"We have done away with the vetting process because it
was discriminatory. As at from May 1 2024 there will be no vetting for birth
certificate, passports and Identification cards," he said.
PS Bitok affirmed that the new policies leveraged on
technology will facilitate seamless registration process and ensure only
eligible Kenyan nationals will be issued with identification documents
particularly in border, urban and cosmopolitan counties.
“We are going to use technology to integrate all our systems
including birth certificate registration, civil registration system, national
registration, and passport registration such that when you come for an
identification card application we just check the data on our System,” added
Bitok.
He revealed that the vetting process challenges has affected
20 counties across the country including those in the border regions and
cosmopolitan counties of Nairobi, Mombasa and Nakuru.
“People on the Nation’s border counties have been
complaining of delay in insurance of Identification documents but now the new
guidelines will enhance the registration of vital documents as government
guarantees the security for all citizens,” he stated.
Bitok however warned that local administrators will be held
accountable for illegal registration of persons in their areas of jurisdiction.