The ‘Huduma Numba’ to register afresh Kenyan citizens has been met with a lot of criticism and there is a lot of drama around the exercise.
Today, we saw reports from traditional media houses where it said that the Communications Authority of Kenya will switch off SIM cards whose owners had failed to register for Huduma Namba by May 18th 2019.
BREAKING NEWS: Communications Authority of Kenya has said that the government will switch off phone sim-cards whose owners fail to register for Huduma Namba by May 18.#GetTheWholeStory pic.twitter.com/AEdH7tW0Du
— The Standard Digital (@StandardKenya) April 18, 2019
That was such a big statement and people on social media were very vocal about this apparent move.
However, the government was quick to clarify what was being posted by media stations and apparently that is not the case.
“The Ministry of Information, Communications and Technology wishes to clarify that the Government is not planning to switch off mobile subscribers who are not Huduma Namba compliant,” the ministry said in a communique.
“We wish to reiterate that the Huduma Namba Registration is a voluntary exercise in compliance with the recent High Court ruling,” the communique further said. “There is absolutely no directive from the Government to institute any punitive measures against those who don’t register.”
However, the Government says it still encourages all Kenyans and foreign nations to present themselves to register for the Huduma Namba at their nearest centre.
This notice from the Ministry follows a communique done by the Communications of Kenya where they said that the Director General was quoted out of context about the switching SIM card issue.
