The Huduma Namba Programme was officially launched on Tuesday by President Uhuru Kenyatta.
The absence of Deputy President William Ruto at the Launch did little to stop the much hyped event with President Kenyatta getting a helping hand from a number of Opposition Chiefs led by Raila Odinga.
President Kenyatta assigned Opposition Chiefs Raila Odinga, Kalonzo Musyoka, Musalia Mudavadi and Moses Wetang’ula roles to help in the successful rollout of the Programme.
The President did not however mention William Ruto’s name anywhere and this has led to wide speculations among Kenyans that the duo seem to be falling out.
In Machakos, Uhuru said the Huduma Namba would help root out corruption in the public sector.
Speaking during the launch at Masii Boys High School in Mwala, the President revealed the system had exposed the presence of more than 5,000 ghost workers in the police service.
“It is shocking to inform you that when we embarked on the police service audit last year, we established over 5,000 ghost workers who were receiving salaries,1,447 in the National Police service, 1,048 officers in the AP, 153 in the DCI which translate to Sh1.8 billion loss annually that was going to the corrupt cartels in the government,” he said.
The President said corruption must be fought by all means.
“It is a must but not a choice,” he said.
In Mombasa, Raila also warned the corrupt to “prepare to carry their own cross”.
The former Prime minister wondered why some people were crying foul even before graft investigations are completed.
Noting that Transparency International has ranked Kenya among the most corrupt countries with Bangladesh, Nicaragua and Democratic Republic of Congo, Raila said the anti-graft war is unstoppable.
“We want to get out of the league of the most corrupt countries,” Raila said at Shika Adabu grounds in Likoni where he launched the NIIMS registration.
In Murang’a, Kalonzo and Wetang’ula urged the government to come up with a data protection policy that will safeguard the data being fed into the NIIMS to remove doubts about the intention of the system.
“We need to assure the public that there is nothing mischievous about the digital registration and sensitise them on its importance,” he said.
The former Vice President said the system would improve service delivery by the government.
Wetang’ula said a motion should be tabled in Parliament to enact the law on information security to protect information.
In Kajiado, Mudavadi praised the system saying it would ease service delivery, reduce corruption and bribery in public offices.
The ANC leader added that NIIMS would help streamline voter registration and make it hard to rig elections. “If this is done right, then we will be able to have an accurate voter register and this will do away with election rigging.”
Mudavadi said the era of opposing the government for the sake of it had come to an end.