Kindiki makes impromptu visit to Nyayo House

Interior CS Kithure Kindiki on Tuesday made an impromptu visit to Nyayo House over delays in passport issuance.

In a statement, Kindiki said he had gone to familiarise himself with the challenges at the immigration department.

"The government will look into the bottlenecks behind the delays and implement the relevant solutions in line with its commitment to promote efficiency in the delivery of essential services to citizens," he said.

This follows public complaints about delays in processing passport applications leading to long waiting period.

Earlier, the ministry had announced that Kenyans are likely to wait for a  longer period before getting passports.

Director general Alexander Muteshi told senators that the agency lacks funds to acquire the booklets for the printing of the documents.

Muteshi further told the MPs that the printers they are currently using are old and obsolete, with a capacity of only about 1,500 passports per day.

“We have very old printers that can only print 1,500 passports per day. If we buy new printers, we will be able to reduce the backlog by printing 10,000 passports per day,” he said.

Muteshi spoke during a meeting with the Senate’s National Security, Defense and Foreign Relations Committee.

However, Kindiki promised to look into the delays of issuance of passports for efficiency in service delivery.