Free birth certificate drive ends on Friday

Economy

Free birth certificate drive ends on Friday

Sunday, August 11, 2019 22:00

By JOHN MUTUA

Provision of birth certificate for free will end on Friday as the State closes the one and half month waiver that was aimed at boosting registration

Interior Secretary Fred Matiang'i in a notice on Friday said that the fee waiver, which started on June 27, will end on August 16, restoring the Sh180 charge for birth registration.

The State has been keen to plug the gap between births and those registered at a time the certificate is required for fresh listing in schools and the recently launched Huduma Namba that involved the mass listing of all Kenyans.

Official data show that Kenya is estimated to have had 7.4 million births in the five years to 2018 with those registered listed at 4.9 million, meaning that a third of the new borns were not captured.

“The exemption from registration fees and fees chargeable for the issuance of certificates of birth shall operate for one and a half months ending on the 16th August, 2019,” Mr Matiang’i said in the notice.

The waiver is set to boost the new primary school registration dubbed National Education Management Information System (Nemis).

Students require birth certificates for registration under Nemis, which is the digital registration of all students who are given a unique identification code that can be used to track their progress at all levels of education.

The State uses Nemis for disbursement of funds to schools.

The Huduma card shall serve as the official government-issued document for identification and conduct of transactions under a proposed law.