The business community in Kisumu in collaboration with Yes Youth Can has launched a campaign to have all the uncollected national identity cards taken to the people in their localities.
The businessmen and women from Kisumu Central Sub County on Thursday liaised with the National Registration Bureau where they picked all the 8,000 uncollected IDs lying in their offices and took to the people.
The exercise which took place at Kenyatta Sports Ground was meant at increasing the id collection in order to allow the people access voter’s cards.
With just five days to the end of the national mass voter registration, the business community expressed fears that many people may be locked out of the exercise given that a number of IDs are still lying with the authorities.
“We do not know whether people fear going to the offices to pick their IDs, because when we brought them to this ground, so many people turned up and have picked their IDs and registered as voters,” said Catherine Achieng who led the exercise.
The exercise saw id registration officers from all the wards in the constituency plus the voter registration clerks from Kisumu Central and Kisumu East sit at one point to register the big number of people who turned up.
A list of the names of people whose IDs are uncollected in the entire constituency was displayed at the Kenyatta Sports Ground, which they termed ‘the list of shame’, and people were expected to check their names to confirm if their IDs are out.
The organisers then cancelled the names as people collected the IDs, before directing them to the voter registration desk.
"This is a challenge to politicians and all elected leaders to take a step because the little efforts they make will help in shaping the country's leadership. Let them come out to the ground and engage people instead of just speaking from a distance," she added.