Belgut Member of Parliament Nelson Koech has finally broken his silence over the ongoing controversy surrounding the illegal issuance of Kenyan identity cards to foreign nationals.
The MP, who also doubles as the chair of the National Assembly's Departmental Committee on Defense, Intelligence and Foreign Relations, on Monday made a shocking revelation that the controversial IDs were actually issued back in 2022 during former President Uhuru Kenyatta's time in office.
According to Koech, his committee took time to investigate the matter properly. He explained that after looking into the identification cards that people have been claiming were illegally acquired, they discovered that all those IDs were issued in 2022 when Fred Matiang'i was serving as the Cabinet Secretary and Uhuru Kenyatta was still the President.
The legislator made these remarks while speaking during a heated panel discussion on Citizen TV's Day Break programme.
Passport Issuance and NIS Role
When asked to comment on the process of issuing Kenyan passports, Koech disclosed that the National Intelligence Service plays a big role in vetting individuals before they can be given travel documents.
The MP further questioned what the current Director of Immigration would even do about a decision that was made back in 2022. In his view, Koech maintained that if a person already holds a valid Kenyan identification card, then there is no good reason to deny that same person a passport.
He argued that since the National Intelligence Service saw it fit back in 2022 to issue IDs to these individuals, the immigration boss has no grounds to turn them away when they come looking for a passport.
"There is no reason whatsoever," Koech said firmly.
The MP also tried to downplay the seriousness of the matter by stating that such security breaches happen everywhere around the world, including in countries with sophisticated systems like the United States and the United Kingdom.
Second Layer of Vetting Missing
But not everyone on the panel was convinced. Kajiado North MP Onesmus Ngogoyo warned that the Kenyan passport might soon lose its value if something is not done urgently.
Ngogoyo pointed out that many leakages have already found their way into the system of issuing both passports and Kenyan IDs. He explained that there is usually a second layer of vetting that must happen, which involves a covering letter that accompanies an applicant's file.
The absence of this covering letter, according to Ngogoyo, simply means that somebody somewhere is not doing their job properly.
Shocking Expose on Corruption
This whole debate was sparked by a recent investigation by the Standard newspaper, which made some very disturbing findings. The expose revealed that foreign nationals with questionable backgrounds from neighbouring countries like Somalia, Uganda and Ethiopia have been obtaining Kenyan national identity cards for as little as Ksh 15,000.
The report further exposed how officials working within the Immigration Department and the National Registration Bureau have been allowing these individuals to acquire IDs through bribery and corruption. According to the findings, all this is happening without proper vetting, scrutiny or any meaningful verification of the applicants' backgrounds.
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