The collection of Huduma Number cards kicked off in February 2021. Registrants are alerted via SMS when their cards are ready for collection. This SMS indicates where the card will be delivered to for collection.
The collection destination is determined by the details the registrant provided during the Huduma Number application. The default location that is used in the SMS is what one provided as their Current Physical Location.
If this information was not provided it defaults to the Permanent Physical Location and should this not be available it finally selects the nearest collection point to the Sub-County indicated in one’s National ID.
In all three scenarios it’s however possible for one to end up with a collection point that is very far from their current location. After all, it’s been almost two years since the Huduma Registration exercise.
Change Collection Point through Huduma Namba portal
Fortunately, included in the SMS is a link to the Huduma Namba portal where registrants can change the collection point to a more preferable destination.
Opening that link will take you to a web page where you can manually select your preferred pickup point. This is a one-time use link, so no changes can be made later.
On the page you’re required to select the County followed by the Sub-county in which you wish to use, then a list of collection points will be populated based on your choices. Pick the one you prefer the most and tap Next to complete the process.
Note however that this change must be completed within 48 hours after receiving the SMS. After this period is over, the card will be dispatched to the location indicated in the SMS.
Also, if you had already selected a collection point, the system will throw back an error indicating the delivery address cannot be changed.
Once the card arrives at the collection centre, the registrants will receive a second SMS alerting them to go collect their card. A different collection centre cannot be selected once it has been delivered.
On the other hand, if the link doesn’t work you can request Huduma customer care to update the collection point for you as explained below.
Request Different Huduma Number Card Collection Point
Reports online indicate that the portal is sometimes inaccessible. Our own research at the time of this writing confirms this as the portal didn’t load when we tried accessing it. It’s possible that the site experiences downtime or is overloaded from high traffic.
As an alternative to this, users can call the Huduma Number Call Centre using the toll-free number 0800 221111 and request them to change the collection point from their end. Users only have to provide their National ID number and their preferred collection point.
You can check here for a list of available collection centres that close to your current location.
