Belgut Member of Parliament Nelson Koech has defended the government’s handling of national identification documents, claiming that identity cards recently cited in reports of irregular issuance to foreign nationals were processed during the previous administration.
Speaking during a panel discussion on Citizen TV’s Day Break programme on Monday, Koech said investigations into the matter showed that the questioned identification cards were issued in 2022.
“We went further and looked into the identification cards they claimed to be illegally acquired. The IDs were issued in the year 2022 when Fred Matiang’i was the Cabinet Secretary and Uhuru Kenyatta was the President,” said Koech.
The legislator, who also chairs the National Assembly Departmental Committee on Defence, Intelligence and Foreign Relations, was responding to concerns raised following allegations that foreign nationals had acquired Kenyan identification documents without undergoing the required vetting procedures.
Addressing questions on the issuance of passports, Koech said the National Intelligence Service (NIS) plays a role in the vetting process before passports are issued.
He argued that once an individual has been lawfully issued with a Kenyan identity card, there would be little basis for immigration authorities to deny them a passport.
“If the National Intelligence Service, then in 2022, found it proper to issue an ID to these individuals, what would deny the Director of Immigration? What would they use to deny the same person an opportunity to own a passport? There is no reason whatsoever,” he said.
His remarks come in the wake of an exposé by The Standard newspaper, which alleged that foreign nationals from neighbouring countries, including Somalia, Uganda and Ethiopia, obtained Kenyan identity cards through corrupt networks.
The report claimed that some individuals acquired the documents for as little as Sh15,000 through bribery involving officials within the Immigration Department and the National Registration Bureau.
According to the exposé, the documents were allegedly issued without proper scrutiny, verification or vetting, raising concerns over the integrity of Kenya’s identification and immigration systems.
The allegations have sparked debate over accountability and the need for stricter safeguards in the issuance of national identification documents.
