Government to Roll Out Second Mass Huduma Namba Registration Drive

The government has revealed plans to roll out a second mass Huduma Namba registration exercise.

Speaking during a media briefing on Wednesday, government spokesperson Col. Cyrus Oguna said the registration drive will be launched by the end of April.

He indicated that a total of 37 million Kenyans, including 20 million adults and 17 million minors, were listed in the National Identity Integrated Management Systems (NIIMS) during the first phase of the exercise.

The government has already sent short messages to 2.2 million registered Kenyans asking them to collect their Huduma Namba cards but Oguna expressed concerns over the low number of people who have responded to the notifications, noting that only 300,000 replied. 

“A few just get this message and perhaps just ignore it. We are asking Kenyans that when you get this message please respond to it so that it makes it easy to be assisted,” Oguna stated.

He added: “We are also aware that some people have received messages that are not coming from Huduma Namba secretariat. There are fraudsters out there. Some have sent messages asking them to pay 100 shillings for the processing of Huduma Namba card. We are telling you that Huduma Namba card is free…nobody should be asked to pay anything and the message you will receive will come from Huduma Namba it will not come as a telephone number." 

Last year, the government said the current national identity cards will be phased out by December 2021, and replaced by Huduma Cards.

Huduma Namba is described as the single source of personal identification for Kenyans, and persons resident in Kenya.