Interior PS Karanja Kibicho on Thursday refuted claims that the government is planning to use Huduma Namba cards to rig in the upcoming polls.
Appearing before the National Assembly Committee on Administration and National Security, Kibicho said that the Bill will safeguard the credibility of the country’s population register.
He added that the cards will not also eliminate the Immigration, Civil, and National Registration departments as was earlier purported.
“Rather, the Bill intends to harmonize the activities of these departments that essentially rely on the same information,” Kibicho said.
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He clarified that the Bill is not seeking to fetch new information but rather consolidate information that is already available at various government departments.
The PS further said that there was no intention to use the Huduma Namba card in the upcoming August 9 general polls.
Huduma Namba Bill 2021 recommended to amend Section 4 (3) of the Elections Act to allow IEBC use data confined under the NIIMS database to update the voter register.
“The bill establishes the NIIMS that will be a primary database for both foundational data, from which every other database with personal data of residents in Kenya, such as databases of voters, taxes, and social services will be built,” it read in part.
It was introduced in Parliament by Majority Leader Amos Kimunya in December last year.
