Public Service CS Sicily Kariuki. Photo/the-star.co.ke
The government has denied that the National Youth Service (NYS) is secretly enlisting voters for the August general election.
This comes after reports emerged on Monday that the NYS personnel was caught allaegedly registering voters in Runda Estate, Nairobi on Monday evening.
In a statement on Tuesday, Public Service CS Sicily Kariuki disputed reports that the government was using NYS to manipulate the outcome of the August polls, noting that the agency was instead registering beneficiaries of the Youth Empowerment Programme (YEP) and not voters as earlier reported.
"The system used for biometric registration of NYScohorts is completely different from the one usedby the IEBC," the Star quoted the CS."The biometric registration has been in use for YEPat NYS since phase two of the programme early in2016. Interested parties have been invited toverify the nature of data captured by the NYSbiometric equipment at the Gigiri police station," she added.
Runda residents detained the NYS servicemen, challenging the electoral body IEBC to come clean on the illegal voter registration claims.
The commission, in response, said there was no cause for alarm over the incident saying the kits and software being used by NYS are not IEBC's.
He further noted that had asked the ministry to suspend the project until the voter registration exercise is completed to clear any uncertainties.