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Principal Secretary for Immigration and Citizen Services Belio Kipsang has appealed to Kenyans who applied for national identity cards to collect their documents, saying 557,930 IDs remain uncollected nationwide.

Kipsang said the government had launched a nationwide mop-up exercise to trace applicants and ensure the identity cards reach their rightful owners.

Appearing before the National Assembly’s Departmental Committee on Administration and Internal Security on Thursday, November 5, the PS disclosed that the exercise would rely on local administrators to reach applicants who had not collected their documents.

“The Committee was briefed on the ongoing national ID mop-up exercise to facilitate collection of the 557,930 identity cards reported as uncollected in the Department’s submission,” the State Department stated.

Kipsang has further noted that chiefs and assistant chiefs had been enlisted to support the exercise.

“Chiefs and Assistant Chiefs are supporting public sensitisation, tracing applicants and facilitating collection to ensure the documents reach their owners,” the statement added.

The government is seeking to clear the backlog through community-level mobilisation, with local administrators helping identify applicants and facilitate the collection process.

The Principal Secretary also highlighted investments in live capture machines, noting that they had significantly shortened the time required to process and produce national identity cards.

He further explained that the validity period of identity cards allows periodic updates to their embedded technology and security features as technology evolves.

Kipsang also disclosed that the State Department was working with the Ministry of Health to integrate hospital management systems with the Civil Registration and Vital Statistics System.

“This will support the rollout of electronic birth notifications, enabling timely registration and more efficient access to civil registration services,” the statement noted.

The initiative is expected to streamline birth registration by improving the transmission of birth information from health facilities to civil registration authorities.

The PS also addressed concerns about excluding certain constitutional office holders and their spouses from eligibility for diplomatic passports.

He explained that the Kenya Citizenship and Immigration Regulations, 2012, prescribe the categories of individuals entitled to the documents.

The PS has further noted that the Cabinet Secretary for Interior and National Administration may authorise the issuance of diplomatic passports to individuals outside the prescribed categories where considered necessary.