About 200,000 Kenyans apply for IDs per month, meaning the number of pending applications could hit 1 million by end of next month, if the legal impasse is not resolved.
Applications for new identity cards have piled up to more than 600,000 in the past two-and-a-half months, with the number going up by 10,000 every day.
The ID crisis has stopped the Police, National Intelligence Service, Kenya Defence Forces and all other state institutions that employ new staff on a continuous basis from recruiting.
About 200,000 Kenyans apply for IDs per month, meaning the number of pending applications could hit 1 million by end of next month, if the legal impasse is not resolved.
The lives of more than half a million Kenyans who turned 18 years after mid-November are at a standstill. They cannot register for a new mobile phone Sim card, open a bank account or even access the Higher Education Loans Board (Helb) funding, for those waiting to join university and other tertiary learning institutions.
The specialised security printer machines that produced the second-generation ID cards for nearly one-and-a-half-decade were switched off on November 14, 2023, but a court order stopping the printing of third-generation IDs was issued shortly thereafter, halting a process that has routinely assigned legal identity to Kenyans since 1915, during the colonial era.
