Uasin Gishu Governor Jackson Mandago has expressed concerns over a large number of uncollected Identify Cards lying at the chiefs’ offices across the county.
This is after the Governor came across over 400 uncollected IDs at Chepkatet location.
Speaking in Inder, Kapseret sub-county, Mandago asked those who have not picked their ID cards to do so and register as voters before the time elapse.
The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) is currently conducting a second, and last phase of the national Mass Voter Registration Exercise which comes to an end on February 9.
Once the voter listing comes to an end, individuals who will not have registred will not be able to particiate in the August 9, 2022, general election.
And as the deadline quickly approaches, Mandago is calling upon parents to help in identifying their children who have not collected the IDs and ensure they do so.
By end of the business on Wednesday, February 2, 2022, IEBC data indicated that only 21,535 new voters had been registered in the Uasin Gishu County.
The electoral body had set a target of at least 100,000 new voters for the county.
A majority of the targeted new voters were youths.
There has however been a concern that youths were no longer interested in registering as voters.
According to the Turbo Sub County Commissioner Mohamed Mwabudzo, there is low morale amongst the youths in issue of voting as they feel nothing will change, even if new leaders are elected.
“The youth say even if they vote, their situations remain the same, with similar problems, although new leaders are elected,” said Mwabudzo.
The DCC, however, wants the youths not to give up, but instead register as voters, and participate in determining who their next leaders are.
In Turbo Sub County, Mwabudzo said they had registred only 13 per cent of the targeted new voters.
The sub county has a target of over 25,973 new voters but only 3,273 have been registered, so far.
“This basically means we have over 87 per cent of targeted new voters yet to be registred, and it is very worrying,” noted the Turbo Sub County Director.
