Interior Cabinet Secretary Kithure Kindiki has said that so far 22,353 passports have been collected since the launch of the Rapid Results Initiate (RRI) for delivery of uncollected passports.
As of Monday, September 25, uncollected passports according to data from the Immigration office stood at 87,574.
However, by close of business on Friday, the remaining number of passports stood at 65,101, with 22, 353 having been picked by the owners.
The distribution across the various centres in terms of collection was as follows; 9,331 passports were collected from the Nairobi centre, Mombasa 3,754, Nakuru 1,528, Embu 2,426, Eldoret 2,297, Kisumu 1,763, and 1,254 from the Kisii station.
The RRI is set to run for at least 30 days.
RRI was initiated by Interior and National Administration CS as part of the policy and operational reforms to resolve the historical backlog in the processing and issuance of passports and other vital citizenship documents.
To effectively see the success of the initiative, the Immigration Department publishes a list of all applicants whose passports are due for collection every Wednesday.
The names are usually for the following week, in order to streamline the collection process.
Earlier, Kindiki had warned that passports that will remain uncollected after their stipulated period of collection will be disposed of and the owners penalised in accordance with the law.
He said the government will invoke Section 5 of the Disposal of Uncollected Goods Act, and Section 31 of the Citizenship and Immigration Act in disposing of uncollected documents.
“Those who will not collect their passports as scheduled after the expiry of the notice we will treat the uncollected documents as uncollected goods and we will dispose of them,” Kindiki said.
RRI was initiated to clear a passport issuance backlog that led to a lot of complaints from Kenyans. Applicants would wait for months to access services.
The CS attributed the backlog to a combination of factors, including the lack of adequate resources and the presence of corrupt elements within the Immigration department.
The decision was informed by the ministry's plan to decongest Nyayo House and other centres and ensure a seamless process of acquiring passports.
Other changes included the revision of the working hours in the passport printing offices to run between 7am and 9pm to maximise service delivery.
