"Your IDs are ready,come collect them" Pastoralist’s communities urged

The community has also been urged to register as voters before the ongoing voter’s registration period elapses.

Doing so would enable the community to exercise their constitutional right to elect their preferred candidate come August 4 general elections.

Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) is currently undertaking the final countrywide voters registration and is targeting to register six million new voters.

Regional registration officer, Julius Itwamware said the ID cards are ready for collection for those who applied.

There are currently 4,042 IDs yet to be collected, most of them belonging to pastoralists and residents living in rural areas according to Itwamware,

most pastoralists’ communities due to lack of proper awareness on the importance of national IDs don’t apply for them and as a result are usually denied free government services, including their human rights services.

According to the latest IEBC statistics, so far they have managed to register, 24 000 new voters in N.Eastern.

Last week while on a Voter Sensitization tour in Central Kenya, President Uhuru Kenyatta directed the National Registration Bureau (NRB) to promptly process and issue ID cards within three days.

The regional officer has urged the media to assist in spreading the information to the residents and pastoralists in far flung areas to enable them vote.

“Most of the uncollected IDs belong to pastoralists, who are unaware that their cards are ready. This is why we want the media and FM stations to help us pass the information to the rural folks,” he told a local daily.

Another batch of IDs will be also be ready for collection next week. Itwamware revealed.

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