Reconsider crucial contents of Huduma Bill

The initial steps in actualising Huduma Namba faced several hurdles including the need for public participation, the quest to better manage the data protection needs, and solving the apparent quagmire of compelling Kenyans to participate voluntarily. The thought required an administrative clean-up, consultation and drafting of a Bill.

On December 21, 2021, the Huduma Bill 2021 was tabled in Parliament. The Bill seems to be an attempt to legalise the operations and use of the citizen’s data collected years ago.

Huduma Namba was modelled on the US social security number. The idea was to have every citizen obtain a unique identifier number that would be required when seeking government services. During the rollout of Huduma Namba, citizens had been assured that they would replace the many cards that they carry to identify themselves as they seek services.

This Bill has not made such an effort to integrate the many other identification documents in the Huduma Namba.

The Bill seeks to repeal several laws including the Births and Deaths Registration Act, the Registration of Persons Act, the Kenya Citizens and Foreign Nationals Management Service Act, 2011 (Service Act), the Marriage Act 2014, the Children Act, 2001, the Traffic Act; and the Tax Procedures Act 2015. Further, the Bill proposes amendments to the Kenya Citizenship and Immigration Act 2011.

One cannot help but see the attempts to bring together an institutional formation consisting of the Integrated Population Registration (IPRS), the National Registration Bureau (NRB), the Civil Registration Department and the passports section of the Department of Immigration.

There is a need to rethink, recast, restructure and rewrite the Bill.

The immigration function determines the sovereignty of a state. A state has defined boundaries. One of the marks of a state is the ability to control or manage the entry, stay, and exit at designated borders. This is the province of immigration authorities. The Bill seems to erase the immigration milestones gained over the years and effectively leaves exposed, one of the key determinants of sovereignty.

The effort to repeal the Service Act will interfere with the operations and administration of immigration matters.

The Bill proposes to replace the institution called Service Board with an individual PS. Further, it ignores progressive sections such as the establishment of an immigration tribunal that would have helped increase transparency in the management of disputes. Lessons could be picked from the tax tribunal, which has contributed to tax jurisprudence by setting precedential thought in tax practice.

The Bill proposes in line with Article 155 argued that the new formation will be under the administration of the PS. Departments have director-generals and directors as had been envisaged in the immigration law.

What is the fate of these offices now that the PS has replaced the director as envisaged in the law? Will the PS be involved directly in the running of the new formation? Will this not require a PS fully dedicated to registration, immigration and citizenship?

The Huduma Bill introduces us to the National Integrated Management System officers — a logical and numerical replacement of immigration officers. This ‘rebranding’ of immigration officers is likely to create confusion. How would immigration officers be part of the team managing the population register?

Is the function of managing a population identity register supposed to be handled by IPRS and NRB? Clearly, the remit of immigration officers is to manage borders and issue immigration documents to citizens and foreign nationals as expounded in the Kenya Citizenship and Immigration Act.

It will not help that the Bill proposes to reduce immigration functions to the management of a population database.

Finally, to ensure data protection, clause 53 provides for the appointment of the data protection officer. This officer serves the duty to protect data and attend to other functions given by the PS.

Why is the Bill not tapping in the already established Data Protection Commissioner’s office? Such an officer can be seconded from the Data Protection office. Similarly, in having such an officer under the direction of the PS, is the Bill not suggesting that the PS is also serving as the Data Protection Commissioner?

In building a tight law to guide Huduma Namba, I would envisage a proper restructuring of the NRB and the IPRS so that the population register is properly constituted, and that each citizen gets a unique identifier called Huduma Namba.

Robert Aswani, senior manager at PwC Kenya’s people and organisation unit in tax, specialising in immigration services