ANC leader Musalia Mudavadi has warned against the introduction of the Huduma number to develop a voter register ahead of the 2022 elections.
In a statement to newsrooms on Tuesday, December 21, the One Kenya Alliance co-principal said the Huduma number system must not be used for purpose of developing or managing our voter register for our forthcoming elections.
He said the Huduma number system has serious gaps which elicit minimum public trust which could adversely affect this process and that it shall undermine the preparedness of IEBC to conduct a free and fair election.
“ANC party is deeply concerned about the information in the public domain that one of the proposed new election’s laws under the Parliament’s consideration as Bills is one that will make it mandatory for the IEBC to develop its voter register from National Integrated Identity Management System also known as Huduma number,
“There is general agreement in Kenya right now that we have a serious trust deficit and that this is a key ingredient in the divisive elections that the country has severely suffered from,” Mudavadi said in a statement posted on his Twitter.
Mudavadi’s remarks come at a time when the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission is in the process of completing the verification of the voter’s register.
Leader of Majority in the National Assembly Amos Kimunya was on Tuesday, December 21, set to introduce the Hduma Bill 2021 for First Reading at the National Assembly which would compel the polls agency to retrieve information about eligible voters from the NIIMS for compilation of its comprehensive voter register.
It would also make it mandatory for the IEBC to develop its voter database from the National Integrated Identity Management System that will be under the control of the Interior ministry.
“This bill seeks to reform the identity ecosystem. It adopts the foundational identity system model,
It establishes the NIIMS, which will be a primary database for both foundational and functional data, from which every other database with personal data of residents in Kenya, such as a database of voters, taxes, and social services, will be built,” the bill says.
