Murkomen Defends ID Vetting

Interior Cabinet Secretary Kipchumba Murkomen has justified the President’s directive of abolishing extra vetting for Kenyans in North Eastern seeking national identity cards, noting that this does not compromise security.

Speaking in Naivasha on Friday 21, Mr Murkomen said that the Department of Immigration will instead set strict guidelines for vetting before getting IDs.

Murkomen said that Kenyans, in future, will not need to apply for IDs, as the Ministry will maximize on technology to capture one’s data at birth and when one attains the required age, they will automatically get one.

To achieve this, CS Murkomen said that the ministry will use information captured in schools, when seeking services in government institutions and also use the family tree information.

His remarks come barely after Kenyans raised concerns that the stopping the compulsory vetting of Identification card applicants will compromise the country’s security.

He said that the policy will not only apply to one corner of the country, as it will be applied to all counties bordering other countries including those bordering Tanzania, South Sudan, Uganda and Ethiopia.

He assured Kenyans that by removing extra vetting, the government is not engaging in political acts noting that the Ministry is responsible for the country’s security.

I want to assure Kenyans that by removing extra vetting the government is compromising security, we are a ministry that is extremely responsible for the security of this country, and we cannot play with such. What has happened is that the processes that we are going to apply now in terms of identifying who has got ID or not, technology will help,” he said.

Earlier this month, President William Ruto signed an executive order stopping the compulsory vetting of Identification card applicants in the North Eastern region.

He said that the executive order will end the discrimination that has been in place for the past 60 years where when one goes to apply for an ID card they are scrutinized.