Gov’t Allays Fears That Huduma Bill Seeks To Abolish Immigration Department

NAIROBI,Kenya, Mar, 17 – Interior Principal Secretary Karanja Kibicho has allayed fears that the Huduma Bill that is before the National Assembly will abolish the Immigration department.

The PS told MPs that the Bill that provides the framework for Huduma Namba and the Huduma card will instead place the proposes to place the services provided by the Immigration department and the Civil Registration and National Registration bureaus under a single legal framework.

Appearing before the National Assembly’s Departmental Committee on Administration and National Security, the PS said staff in the three departments will continue to offer their distinct services separately but under a Huduma Secretariat.

“We need to make it absolutely clear that this Bill does not kill the Immigration department.

That was never the intention. The functions of the Citizens and the Immigration Act will remain in place. The person who is trained to do immigration will continue to work in his/her current station,” the PS said.

He said it was wrong for the Immigration department to oppose the Bill in court since its senior management and the staff have been involved in drafting it and have been sensitized on its implications.

“The Immigration department has been a faithful attendee of all Huduma Bill meetings. It has been a critical player in our stakeholders’ engagements. We have engaged their lawyers and shared all information to the staff,” he said.

He was referring to claims by the Immigration department and other critics that the Bill is designed to abolish it and transfer its operations to the proposed Huduma secretariat.

The PS defended the proposed Huduma Namba and Huduma card as a realistic and necessary consolidation of information that is currently held by various State agencies who will be able to make huge savings by negating the need for multiple biometric registration.

Currently, the CRB, NRB, National Hospital Insurance Fund (NHIF), the National Transport and Safety Authority (NTSA), the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) and other public institutions spend millions of shillings in separate registration drives.

“The Bill is trying to create tidiness and order. Currently, we have various registrations that capture the need the same data. Instead of running to places to be asked ten times, why can’t we have one that rationalizes the same number from birth to death,” PS Kibicho said.

He said the Bill will also help isolate criminals and undeserving beneficiaries of important identification documents who have infiltrated government systems over the years.

MPs led by MP Peter Mwathi (Limuru) who chairs the Committee challenged the Ministry to enhance civic education around the Bill saying majority of its critics were ill-informed of its objectives.