NAIROBI, Kenya, Feb 25 – A new company is making it easier for Kenyans countrywide to trace their lost documents using an SMS delivery system.
Cahunyo Info-Track, which was founded by James Kahunyo and launched earlier this year using the Safaricom interface, is compiling all lost documents from police stations, chiefs camps and government institutions such as the ministry of immigration into their database and urging people to use their SMS system to track their lost files.
“We collect data such as a person’s name and their ID number put it in our data base and people can SMS their information to 3296 and you will get a response from our company telling you where you can pick up your ID,” he revealed.
The business is currently using a beta model which costs Sh15 per SMS. Kahunyo says that they received over 1,000 text enquiries last week, many from Kisumu and Nyamasaria where people successfully recovered their ID’s.
“When you lose an ID in Kenya, it costs a lot of money and can take up to three months to replace it so the service we are providing will help a lot of people and also save the government millions of shillings used to reprint ID’s, allowing them to focus on more important issues,” he emphasised.
Kahunyo said that he intends to collect lost data from every corner of the country over the next six months while relentlessly promoting his company’s service, before launching a website where people can post lost or missing documents by the end of the year.
“I would like to get as much data as possible because I don’t want to con people who use our service by telling them to text us when we have no information in our database,” he said.
He added that his long term goal is to introduce an interactive free mobile application that works seamlessly with the website, where people can send Cahunyo Info-Track the basic information from any lost documents that they come across.
“Our database will be the most comprehensive lost-and-found establishment in Kenya,” he promised.
The company is in partnership with Safaricom and Kenyaweb, and Kahunyo confirmed that the majority of their profits will be generated by selling advertising directly on their SMS text messages.
He admitted that collecting recovered documents from police stations, chiefs camps and other government institutions has been a challenge because some people have questioned his company’s motive.
“People have accused me of trying to collect the information in order to recruit others to certain political parties or to take away potential customers from their business,” he said.
“I have no motive other than to help Kenyans reduce stress by saving them time and money with this document recovery system,” he confirmed.
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