Ex-CBK boss pushes for adoption of e-IDs

The challenge of electronic identification will need to be overcome in order to increase digital connectivity, development of mobile money and increase financial inclusion, a new study shows.

The research, conducted by former Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) governor Njuguna Ndung’u, concludes that the current identification system is not digitally enabled and secure enough for further revolution in the provision of mobile payment services and consumer protection.

“An important focus for the future is to transition to full electronic identification (e-ID)—Kenya’s long-established ID system is not the most digitally enabled even though it has wide coverage. Once digitally enabled, it can be further cleaned and its security enhanced,” says Prof Ndung’u who licensed Safaricom’s M-Pesa in 2007.

The study is titled “Digital Technology and State Capacity in Kenya,” and was published last month by the Centre for Global Development, which works to reduce global poverty and improve lives through innovative economic research.

The enhancement of the identification system would open a range of opportunities for public programmes, businesses, taxpayers and investors.

For public purposes, he says, the current system of paying State-supported pension has been exposed as vulnerable to fraud and inconsistences with tens of thousands of ghost pensioners being paid every month having found their way into the system illegally.

A 2018 clean-up of the police force payroll also found thousands of ghost officers were being paid by the government. The registration of deaths and births has also been found to be inadequate as it is not digitally systematised.