The Office of the Registrar of Political Parties (ORPP) has lately been a beehive of activities with increased inperson service requests from customers seeking varied services. Topping the service requests from months February through April and on, have been matters relating to; membership resignations; submission and/or membership lists for certification and requests for certification of membership status & proposed symbols of persons intending to vie in the 2022 general election as independent candidates among others.
ORPP staff, Justus Osore (seated) attends to clients at a makeshift service bay at 4th floor headquarters
Latest also, issuance of certified registers to parties has been a regular service. Responsible Directorates andDepartments have correspondingly adjusted their working schedules and mode with some days recording near 24-hour cycle service from dedicated staff with the Registrar of hand every step to give necessary strategic guidance. On the 26th Deadline which fell on a Saturday, a section of staff spent entire daytime and night running to Sunday dawn to serve influx of clients who trooped in the dying hours to the deadline. The county offices have also joined the conundrum in timely sending to the headquarters applications and other requests submitted through respective offices so as to reach on time and be processed accordingly. In the past over two weeks upon the deadline of party membership lists of 26th March,2022 , the situation has not been any different, with skyrocketed number of political parties representatives making follow ups and given a chance to undertake necessary validation touches against submitted membership lists.
Validation of membership lists
The tail-end of last week, 4th boardroom at the ORPP headquarters was turned into a ‘clinic’ on which party representatives were granted opportunity to identify any disparity between membership lists submitted within the timeline and their party aspirants lists. Staff lead by Compliance and ICT departments with close guidance in their respective Directorates, dedicated their time of their of busy schedule to guide and act on emerging issues that came up on validation exercise.
Party representatives during validation exercise in 4th floor boardroom
The certification process has since been issued to stakeholders. “The process of certification of the registers will entail; verification of data of party registers will entail certifying that persons in the membership lists meets the requirements of the Political Parties Act, 2011; confirming that aspirants lists submitted are verified against membership register to ascertain that the aspirants are members of respective parties”, guided the Registrar of Political Parties, Ann Nderitu in a press briefing at ORPP headquarters on 29th March, 2022. She further assured that any emerging administrative concerns (if any) that may emanate from the verification will be handled on case-by-case basis with the concerned political party.
“Upon verification, Registrar will issue a certified party membership register in printed format and a read- only soft copy to each of the party”, read the press briefing attended by over 12 different outfits. Working overdrive has extended post-validation exercise, with a section of ICT team steering the printing and production of electronic registers on schedule. The printing of the registers that are well-laden with security features, was done with close supervision of ORPP by the Government Press. To demonstrate the effort incurred, most party registers process are now marked “certified” and had by 6th April,2022 been formally issued with their respective registers. By this date, over 72 parties out of the 82 had received the registers. This is way ahead of legal deadline of submission of certified membership lists by ORPP to Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) on 9th April, 2022.