President William Ruto's administration is yet again anxiously awaiting on another ruling scheduled for Tuesday which may derail one of his legacy projects.
In December last year, the High Court of Kenya halted the rollout of Maisha Namba, which was aimed at replacing Huduma Namba, due to a lack of a data protection impact assessment.
Speaking to Kenyans.co.ke via phone, a source at the Ministry of Interior revealed that they are facing a backlog in the production of ID cards as well as Huduma Namba cards after the ruling was delivered.
"We are facing a backlog in the printing of IDs as we had configured the systems in readiness of Digital IDs," he stated.
"The backlogs emanate from the court ruling that placed an injunction on the Maisha Number pending the determination of the case tomorrow."
Tomorrow, the court is expected to approve the switch from the normal identification card to the official rollout of the Maisha Namba card.
The state rolled out the pilot phase of the project on November 1 last year with a special focus on two categories of Kenyans.
Immigration and Citizen Services PS Prof Julius Bitok told the press at the time that the pilot phase would target first-time applicants.
"All Kenyans turning 18 years in whichever part of Kenya will be issued with a Maisha Card on a pilot basis. This way, we will establish whether there are any errors or issues before we do the penultimate launch," he stated.
According to the PS, 10,000 individuals apply for a new identification card every day while 5,000 apply for duplicates.
Maisha Card will feature a unique personal identifier (UPI) number known as Maisha Namba that will be the primary and lifelong registration and identification reference for its holders.
If the court denies the rollout, the administration will suffer another setback following the ruling on the deployment of police officers to Haiti as well as the rollout of the housing levy.
