The Immigration and Citizen Services Principal Secretary Julius Bitok has announced that all KCSE candidates who are 18 years and above will receive the new Maisha Card before the end of their exams.
“We have mobilized our registration officers across the country to issue Maisha Cards to eligible candidates. This will enable them to apply for Higher Education Loans Board (HELB) loans, scholarships, and other post-secondary opportunities, both locally and internationally,” Bitok said.
Speaking to the National Assembly’s Education, Research, and Technology Committee, the PS announced a joint effort between the Ministries of Interior and Education to prevent students from being disadvantaged due to missing identification documents at universities and colleges.
The PS has announced that a paperless Maisha Card registration process is being tested in Huduma Centres and NRB offices in the county headquarters.
“We’ve gone paperless. Applicants can apply for their ID cards through the eCitizen portal and then visit any Huduma Centre or NRB county office for biometrics, which are transmitted in real-time to the NRB headquarters in Nairobi,” Bitok added.
This new system is expected to reduce processing time, ensuring Maisha Cards are issued within 10 days.
The committee led by Tinderet MP Julius Melly raised concerns about delays in issuing ID cards to university candidates. The committee attributed the delays to court injunctions halting the issuance of Maisha Cards, leading to a backlog of 600,000 unprinted IDs.
However, Bitok assured the committee that the government had lifted court orders, cleared the backlog, and improved capacity through new printing equipment and a 24-hour work schedule.
“Our average daily applications are around 10,000, but we now have a printing capacity of 32,000. So far, we have printed over 1.8 million Maisha Cards, of which 1.29 million have been collected,” he said, urging those with pending cards to pick them up. He noted that over 569,000 cards are still uncollected, and applicants have been notified via SMS.
