The ongoing debacle around the Huduma Namba has been ongoing for a while now. The government wants people to register and Kenyans on social media were up in arms resisting this move.
Well it seems like the ongoing registration is going well as according to the Presidential Delivery Unit, 20 million Kenyans have so far signed up for Huduma Number.
20 million Kenyans have so far signed up for the Huduma Namba. We are not doing the Huduma Namba for the sake of it. It’s being done for a number of reasons including improving Gov’t services to Kenyans. @NziokaWaita @StateHouseKenya #Checkpoint
— Government Delivery Services (@GDSDelivery) April 28, 2019
Basing that with the United Nations estimate of 52 million Kenyans as of 2019, this means roughly 38% of Kenyans have signed up for Huduma Namba which is quite impressive.
Early in April, it was reported that 5 million Kenyans had registered for Huduma Number. This number quickly rose to 11 million as of April 19th 2019. The new 20 million milestone was announced yesterday, which means one million Kenyans have been registered per day since the previous tally on 19th April 2019.
Huduma Namba is a unique number that is generated that will allow one to access government services. It is a consequence of the initiation of the National Integrated Identity Management system which has a purpose of creating a central master population database that will be the single source of truth on a person’s identity.
When they collect your biometric data, the system will generate the unique number (Huduma Namba) of which you will use to access future government services like applying for a driving licence, ID, birth certificates or more.
The deadline for applying for Huduma Namba was set for May 17th 2019 but Cabinet Secretary, Fred Matiang’i said that people would still register even after the deadline elapsed.
