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{
    "id": 393187,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/393187/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 153,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Njenga",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 1510,
        "legal_name": "Francis Kigo Njenga",
        "slug": "francis-kigo-njenga"
    },
    "content": "I am also disturbed by the red-tape. I personally had to go all the way to Kiambu to collect an identity card, a distance of about 70 kilometres. I recently lost an identity card and the pain I underwent was so much. I am also told that people are now counterfeiting the new generation identity cards; I am sure with the digital era, we do not have to go through all that. The red tape is disturbing. I am also disturbed by what has happened in this country over the last 10 or so years. We have had many immigrants who, although they have come to Kenya and have acquired identity cards, they cannot speak Kiswahili, English or any of the vernacular languages. They are doing business in Kenya. I am very sure that these are the people who are master-minding corruption in this country. I am even very sure that to a large extent, terrorists acquire Kenyan identity cards through our flawed system. The KRA has had a lot of problem trying to widen the tax net. As many Kenyans as possible should pay taxes, so that we can widen the net and increase the amount of revenue that we can get to develop Kenya and provide services to our people. The easiest way of doing this is by identifying every child born in Kenya and every person living in Kenya as a target for tax payment, so that we can raise revenue. This can be done if this Motion is converted into a Bill and then its provisions are implemented. I am always disturbed every time we get to a year with a nine, for example 2009 and 1999; I will be disturbed when we get to 2019 because of the census. Every time we have a census in this country, there are complaints that we spend a lot of money to conduct the census. If I remember well, some data was rejected last time. Some people produced more Kenyans in the statistics than the known population for their area. If we could adopt the system as stipulated in this Motion, we will be doing an automatic census, and all the money that we use for the census shall be used for other purposes. When a Kenyan is born, we should add to the population and a Kenyan who has left, we minus. So, the identification number will also act as the death certificate should one pass on. The most important thing is that if we adopt this digital system, we will come up with credit reference bureaus that are very important to banks, lending institutions and even business people like landlords. These institutions can use the reference to verify individual characters. I strongly feel that we should enforce the provisions of this Motion and become digital. This should also happen to the Department of Immigration, so that once you get out of Kenya, we can know where you are and at what time. It is high time that this was implemented. It is high time that we unified this and a Kenyan becomes a public asset. Kenyans should be public assets; every person born in Kenya must be identified as a Kenyan. It should be in public domain that one is a Kenyan. I support this Motion. It is not even enough to urge the Government, but to tell the Government to do this. Our role is to represent the people. Our role is oversight. We want to save the money the Government uses issuing identity cards by resolving that this Motion must be implemented by our Government, which is a digital Government. They must prove how digital they are by implementing this Motion. I support the Motion."
}