Six Reasons why I am not Boarding Huduma Namba Nonsense

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The idea that you need a #HudumaNamba to consolidate government services is a blatant technical lie. Your ID number is already unique, and you cannot get anything else without it. If the government’s efforts were honest, they’d improve their current systems, not add a new one.

The second issue is simply that there wasn’t enough public participation for the exercise.

It’s ironic that there was an uproar about JKIA being quickly and silently taken over by government-owned KQ, and yet people are rushing to register without involvement and information.

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To date, I’ve tried to find one single source of truth about the huduma number. Nothing.

Whenever information (especially about service delivery) is made scarce by a government that has spent hundreds of millions on ads convincing us that it “delivers,” what does that tell you?

https://twitter.com/jonniwaka/status/1119110558458888199

Third, is the fact that Kenya does not have the right legal framework to protect people’s data.

Why would the government rush to implement something so extensive yet data protection bills have been sitting in parliament for the past few years?

Acknowledgement slip is all that you get after registration. The clerks don’t have any info on when the cards will be available and where we will collect them! This #HudumaNamba is getting rushed for no apparent reason! #HudumaNumber pic.twitter.com/StvLhmTYhe— joseph kimonyi (@jkimonyi) April 18, 2019

Fourth, we do not know (at least we haven’t been told) who owns the data, and what their interests are. It can’t be about service delivery, because it is clear that the service this country has received from the government has largely been a disservice. Who else is involved?

Fifth, is the principle referred to as “follow the money.”

The unconfirmed figure I’ve heard is that the budget for the project is 6 Billion. (Context: 1 million seconds = 11 days. 1 billion seconds = 32 years)

Who stands to benefit? Politicians and hustlers. Not the people.

Sixth, no clarification has been made about the cards not having an expiry date.

We do this all the time in tech. Instead of selling you expensive software once, we switch to a subscription model which seems “affordable” but which means you’ll pay a lot more over your lifetime.

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