State closes Huduma Namba registration

The Huduma Namba mass registration ended yesterday after a week-long extension by the President Uhuru Kenyatta.

The characteristic queues for the last minute Kenyans, which prompted President Kenyatta to give a one week window period last Friday, were missing.

At registration centres in Nairobi and across the country there were only a handful of people on the queues.

People trickled into the General Post Office (GPO) Huduma Centre and Nyayo House, which were the two major registration centres in Nairobi, a stark contrast to the chaos witnessed last week.

By 5pm yesterday, there were about 60 people awaiting registration at GPO, a guard stationed at the entrance directed others to Nyayo House where there were even fewer people.

The contrast was in Mombasa where the situation mirrored last week. The long queues at GPO Huduma Centre in Mombasa persisted.

Hundreds of residents queued patiently from early morning, others complained that they had not been registered despite queuing for two consecutive days.

Seven clerks were at hand to manage the process which will now be handled by local administration officers.

The exercise concludes after 52 days of listing for the National Integrated Identity Management System (NIIMS) which the State says will make it easier to access government services by creating a central population database.

With the government now firm that there won't be any other extension, those locked out by the deadline will have to register at from their Assistant Chief's office.

Government Spokesman Cyrus Oguna said on Thursday the government will over the next four-months verify the data and open a window for rectification of errors.

Once the process of cleaning the data is completed, he said, the Huduma numbers will be sent to residents through their mobile phones while those whose data will have errors will be required to register again.

He said 36 million Kenyans had been registered by Thursday.