Six years old children will start getting Identification Cards. Ministry of Interior has announced.
Permanent Secretary PS Karanja Kibicho on Sunday Sept 20th announced plans to roll out the exercise were underway arguing that at the age of six a child’s facial biometric can be detected with a lot of ease.
Kibicho mentioned that this cards will be named as Minor Huduma Card where the State is set to distribute the Huduma Smart Card under the National Integrated Management System NIMS.
According to the Ministry of Interior, at birth, a child will be offered a number which can then be used in enrolling him or her to the Huduma Card platform in the minors category.
“When you are born you get a birth notification, after which a birth certificate with a number is generated.
“Then at the age of six, you go to school where the Ministry of Education will want to register you under the National Education Management Information System (Nemis) and give you a Nemis Number,” he affirmed.
Kibicho further explained that the card will have a unique individual identifying digit specifically capped ‘below 18 years’.
He said the number given at birth will help a great deal in quicker registration of a child at school, during Minors Card application and when applying for final Identity Card.
And for those who are not Kenyan citizens, the government has plans to issue them with a different Huduma Card.
During the last Huduma registration exercise, children who were above six years old got their Huduma Namba using only their Birth Certificates and fingerprints.
And weighing on the increased concerns on the delay of Huduma Cards, PS Kibicho defended that this delay was due to a thorough harmonization exercise of available data.
“What we have in our records must match what is in the database 100% for us to be sure that the person who presented him or herself before us is the person we shall admit as a Kenyan,” he added.
He then said the State had hired 90 fingerprint experts working day and night to make the exercise a success.
