Passport services will be made available to people in Northeastern Kenya. This is as President William Ruto is set to open the Garissa passport office after Ramadhan.
As announced by Interior Cabinet Secretary Kithure Kindiki on Tuesday, the passport centre will be the eighth one.
"Garissa passport office to be opened by President William Ruto after Ramadhan," he said.
The Interior boss explained that the head of state was meant to visit Garissa earlier but the visit was delayed.
While speaking in Garissa, Kindiki also said that the President will be announcing new guidelines on the issuance of passports.
"God willing, The President will also announce new guidelines on issuance of passports, IDs and other citizenship documents to residents of Northeastern, which will ease the old process that was bureaucratic and inconvenienced some residents," he added.
At the moment, passport offices are found in Nairobi, Embu, Kisumu, Mombasa, Eldoret, Nakuru and Kisii counties
The Interior CS was speaking at Shanta Abaq Town in Lagdera Constituency, as he operationalised the new Shanta Abaq subcounty.
Kindiki also opened the Deputy County Commissioner’s(DCC) offices and installed the first DCC for the Sub-County.
Leaders who attended the event include Garissa Governor Nathif Jama, Abdul Haji (Senator), Udgoon Siyad (Woman Representative), Abdikadir Hussein Mohamed (MP, Lagdera) and members of the Garissa County Assembly, Community leaders and members of the public.
Delay of passport issuance has been a challenge facing the government
Last month, CS Kindiki took fault for the delayed progress in passport issuance.
Kindiki acknowledged the pain and frustration experienced by many Kenyans seeking passports for various reasons, resulting in lost employment opportunities and restricted travel for medical care, education, business, or leisure.
"The prevailing state of affairs is inexcusable, considering that it is the right of every Kenyan to acquire citizenship documents, including travel documents. As the Cabinet Secretary overseeing passport issuance, I take responsibility for the slow pace of reforms and the prevailing systemic inefficiencies," he said.
However, on Tuesday Kenyans were called upon to collect 58, 330 passports that are yet to be picked at various Immigration offices across the country.
Immigration PS Julius Bitok announced that the uncollected booklets were taking up spaces in the office.
"We urge applicants who have already been notified that their passports are ready to collect them as soon as possible to free up storage space," he said in a statement.
Nairobi leads with the highest number of uncollected passports at 24,613, followed by Embu county with 9,584
Kisumu county has 6,087 uncollected passports while Mombasa had 5,759, Eldoret (4,538), Nakuru (4,466) and Kisii with 3,283.
