Premium
MPs to reverse regulations on hiking Identity Card charges
Members of the public queue at the Department of Immigration Services Passport control office at Nyayo House in Nairobi. Inset: Kenyan ID cards, a passport, and birth certificates.
Members of Parliament will revoke regulations that seek to make it expensive to acquire and replace an Identity Card as well as birth and death registration documents.
The lawmakers say there was no public participation and that the regulations are marred by errors.
Ainabkoi MP Samuel Chepkong’a, who chairs the Delegated Legislation Committee of the National Assembly, made the committee’s position clear to Immigration Principal Secretary Julius Bitok during a meeting with the committee on Wednesday following complaints from committee members that they are punitive.
Mr Chepkong’a told PS Bitok the Maisha Namba, a Unique Personal Identifier (UPI) that the government is planning to roll out is not anchored in the regulations.
The Registration of Persons (Amendment) rules, and the Births and Deaths Registration (Amendment) rules were published by former Interior Cabinet Secretary Prof Kithure Kindiki and immediately came into operation in line with the Statutory Instruments Act causing uproar among Kenyans.
On Wednesday, Mr Chepkong’a told PS Bitok that he would need to republish the regulations as it was difficult to implement them in their current form.
“We may consider revoking these regulations. The mistakes are too many,” said Mr Chepkong'a, adding that the document he had presented to the committee as evidence that the regulations had been subjected to public participation was not enough.
“On a number of issues that we have raised which are very substantive a corrigendum may not be sufficient, you may need to republish and revoke what you have already provided, because if we consider it in the manner, it is, it might be very difficult to achieve the intended purpose,” Mr Chepkong’a added.
Maisha Namba is a 14-digit identification assigned at birth and used throughout a person’s life as a legal identity reference and consolidates multiple identities such as Identity Card numbers, Social Health Authority (SHA), Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) Personal Identification Number (PIN) and birth certificates into a unified system.
The Registration of Persons (Amendment) rules, for instance, prescribe a charge of Sh300 to apply for a new Identity Card.
Previously, the acquisition of a new Identity Card cost Sh300, before it was reduced to Sh100, Sh50 before the application charge was waived under the administration of former President Uhuru Kenyatta.
The Registration of Persons (Amendment) rules further seek to prescribe Sh1,000 each to duplicate or replace an ID Card, to alter the particulars of the ID Card, for identification reports, for civil servants’ cards and staff badges for public officers.
The Births and Deaths Registration (Amendment) rules propose Sh1,000 for the registration, re-registration of births and correcting a birth or death entry. The services were previously offered free of charge.
There is also a proposal to charge Sh500 for the registration of a birth or death more than six months after the date of birth or death and Sh200 for a birth or death certificate.
A further Sh500 is prescribed for authenticating the seal of the principal registrar on any birth or death certificate on application by an individual and a government agency.
There is also Sh1,000 proposed for authenticating the seal of the principal registrar on any birth or death certificate on application by a private agency and US$100 for authenticating the seal of the principal registrar on any birth or death certificate on application by a foreign mission in Kenya.
PS Bitok defended the hikes noting that it is necessary as the last increase was done 36 years ago.
“Some of the proposed hikes are also necessary to reduce fraud that comes with giving correct details. It is also a question of national security to check against easy change of details,” said PS Bitok.
However, committee members Lenguris Pauline (Samburu County Woman Rep), Komingoi Kirui (Bureti) and Charles Mamwacha (Bonchari) protested the proposed fee hikes saying that it would further bog down the already overtaxed Kenyans.
“My concern is the increase in charges. It is a concern to Kenyans because the taxes are too high,” said Ms Lenguris adding; “the increase should have been gradual because everyone is complaining about the high taxes.”
Mr Komingoi noted that his child is a victim of an erroneous data entry that saw his surname misspelt on his Identity Card.
“As a committee, we should not be sympathetic to the Ministry. I find this truly exorbitant. I don’t support the increase based on time justification,” said Mr Komingoi as Mr Chepkong’a warned; “it is not a good reason to increase the charges because you haven’t done it for 36 years.”
But even as the MPs opposed it, their colleague, Gideon Kimaiyo (Keiyo South) said he did not have a problem with the proposed fee hikes.
“I don’t have a problem with the increase as long as you make the services available. Let the increase reflect on the birth certificate issuance because birth certificates are critical in the release of the government capitation amounts for public schools,” said Mr Kimaiyo.
