Nairobi, Kenya, Nov 29 – The Government will look into bottlenecks behind delays at Immigrations Department and implement solutions to promote efficient service delivery, Interior cabinet secretary Kithure Kindiki has said.
Kindiki made the remarks Tuesday when an made an impromptu visit to Nyayo House to familiarize himself with the challenges at Immigration specifically around the issuance of passports.
“This follows public complaints about delays in processing applications leading to long waiting period,” the Ministry of Interior said.
Kindiki’s visit comes at a time when the Immigration department grapples with a shortage of booklets partly attributed to the delays.
Appearing before the Senate National Security and Defence committee, Immigrations Director-General Alexander Muteshi said they are in urgent need of Sh150 million to purchase booklets for printing passports.
Last month, the Government stated that Kenyans will still be able to renew or replace the old generation passports even after the November 30 deadline.
On October 17, Immigrations Director General Muteshi stated that the exercise will continue in all passport application centres locally and at missions abroad.
According to Muteshi, Kenya will fully migrate to the new passports from December 1.
“The Directorate of Immigration Services wishes to remind the general public that the deadline for phasing out of the old generation Kenya passport is 30th November 2022,” read the report.
“Kenya will migrate fully to using the new East African Community Biometric e-passport on 1st December 2022,” he said.
Kenya launched the e-passport system in September 2017 in compliance with the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) document 9303 and the East African Community Summit resolution.
In November 2021, the EAC Council of ministers in a meeting held in Arusha agreed to do away with the old-generation passports for all member states by November 2022.
The new e-passport contains the holder’s biodata and is aimed at enhancing efficiency and to do away with any security loopholes.
Muteshi further said that the replacement of the passports will continue even after the deadline.
“However, renewal/replacement of the old generation Kenya passport will continue normally in all our passport application centers locally, and in our missions abroad after this deadline,” he added.
November 30th, however, marks the fourth time that the deadline for acquiring the EAC passport is being set after being previously extended from 2019 to March 2020 by former president Uhuru Kenyatta.
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