Kindiki visits Nyayo House over passports delays

Interior Cabinet Secretary Kithure Kindiki Tuesday made a surprise visit to Nyayo House to familiarise himself with the challenges at the Immigration department.

He wanted to know the challenges the department is facing in the issuance of passports.

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

He arrived in a low-key motorcade while in a cap and suit and interacted with some of those present.

He also talked with some of the staff there. He later met the deputy director general at the department Isaac Ochieng who briefed him on progress there.

Kindiki said 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.

Last week, the department said they have been running low on passport stock levels for the past few months.

“In this regard, the Directorate has decided that passport printing be limited to urgent cases only for the time being.”

“This is therefore to inform you to limit your requests for special cases to very urgent cases only,” said the directorate Director General Alexander Muteshi in an internal memo dated November 8.

He also told Senate’s National Security and Defence Committee those who have applied for the passports will have to wait longer for their passports owing to a lack of booklets for printing.

This has been worsened by a situation where Immigration officials in missions abroad are experiencing non-payment of their dues for months by the National Treasury.

Muteshi said they are collecting about Sh12 billion annually but has to beg the National Treasury for the release of funds to purchase new printers and pay its workers.

He said the current printers they are using are old and obsolete, with a capacity of only 1,500 passports per day.

He said new machines could print at least 10,000 passports a day. “If we buy new machines, we will be able to reduce the backlog by printing 10,000 passports a day.”

He added since the Immigration department digitised its services, with all payments done online, officers in missions abroad have been having issues with payment.

While supporting the ongoing digitisation, Muteshi told the committee that the National Treasury should create avenues for releasing cash meant for public officers.

Projects the department is planning to undertake an Integrated Border Management Service, digitalisation, facial recognition, e-gates, Passenger Name Record and Advance Passenger Indexing.Ends