Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta has demonstrated the government’s commitment to promoting e-Government in the country by launching an integrated registration system to consolidate population registration information into a single database for ease of verification by both Government and private bodies. With this tool, data on all people in Kenya can be found in one place.
This makes good the promise made by the Jubilee Government to provide a central database that identifies all citizens and foreign nationals in the country. The system has been dubbed the Integrated Population Registration System (IPRS). During its launch at the Kenyatta International Convention Centre, the President said credible data was critical for development and indispensable for the planning and delivery of public services.
At a fundamental level, the project has two components. The first is a National Population Register (NPR) which contains data on all Kenyan citizens and foreign residents while the second component is a unique identifier (PIN) that is assigned to every person’s record at birth; this number serves as a reference in all transactions regarding the person.
Data from the NPR will be available to different agencies broadly categorized as primary and secondary. The primary registration agencies will include the Civil Registration Department, National Registration Bureau, Immigration Department and Department of Refugees’ Affairs while the secondary agencies include the National Social Security Fund (NSSF), Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) and National Hospital Insurance Fund (NHIF).
According to the President, having all information available in a single database is good for trade, investment and job creation. “It is therefore imperative for Government to have the means to collect, verify and administer data on every individual resident in our country,” he said.
A live demonstration of the system showed how all documents belonging to a person including birth certificate, school certificate, KRA PIN, and other documents can be accessed at the touch of a button. Also, if a person dies, the system marks the individual as deceased; this is a particularly useful feature especially during elections.
This move by the largest east African economy is sure to set the pace for the rest of Africa, leading to a further adoption of digital solutions in everyday processes.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Emmanuel Iruobe
Quelle/Source: Ventures Africa, 14.03.2015
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