Millions of young Kenyans are staring at delays in the processing of their national identity cards after the High Court suspended issuing of the Maisha Namba.

The court last month suspended the rollout of the new digital ID cards  pending the determination of a case filed by the Haki na Sheria Initiative.

Issuing the order, Justice Lawrence Mugambi said it would be difficult to remedy damage caused if the court eventually finds the process unconstitutional.

“The court is satisfied that based on the latest disclosure, an order suspending any further or continued implementation of Maisha Namba, Maisha card and Maisha Database pending [the] hearing and determination of this application ought to be issued,” the judge ruled.

Following that decision, young people seeking to apply for jobs, student loans, bank loans and passports but have not applied for the digital IDs will have to wait for the court to make a final determination on the matter.

Some young Kenyans have protested after being barred from applying for student loans for lacking IDs.

And hundreds of Kenyans seeking passports to travel overseas will have to wait for the court’s pronouncement before applying for the IDs, which they need to apply for the travel documents.

Documents seen by People Daily indicate that by the time the court issued the injunction, 1,021,923 cards had been produced and were in the queue for printing.

Another 439,895 applications were in the queue pending production. They include 235,774 males and 204,245 females.

After the injunction was issued, another 120,197 new applications had been made, and a further 319,823 applications of other types.

The document states that about 10,000 applications are made every day across the country.

Second-generations IDS

A source at the Immigration department said it would not be possible to go back to issuing second-generation IDs owing to several factors.

Immigration PS Julius Bitok declined to comment on the matter, saying that would be prejudicial as the matter was in court.

“It would require a lot in terms of processes, budgets, timelines, and technology to revert to second generation IDs,” said the source.

Added the source: “It would not possible due to among other reasons, obsolescence of the personalisation machine/printers for the old ID card since the machine has reached end of life, outmodedness of the plastic-based Teslin material for ID cards which is no longer available in the market.”

Advances in technology related to systems (hardware and software) and ID card technology also makes it difficult for the government to revert to the old systems.

Second generation ID cards have limited security features compared with new ones.