Kenyans have 30 days, starting Monday (today), to collect 87,574 passports lying at various centres across the country.
Of the uncollected passports, Nyayo House (Nairobi) has 36,170, Embu regional office ( 10,409 ), Eldoret regional office ( 9,938 ), Kisumu regional office (9,515), Nakuru regional office ( 8,023 ), Kisii regional office ( 7,971 ) and Mombasa regional office ( 5,424 ).
This is part of the Rapid Result Initiative launched by Interior CS Kithure Kindiki last week.
The CS warned that those that will not be collected within the time given, will be disposed of.
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.
The Interior CS revealed that every Wednesday, the Immigration Department will publish a list of all applicants whose passports are due for collection the following week.
“Every Wednesday we will be publicising the people who must come for their passports for the entire week,” Kindiki said.
Encouraging Kenyans to apply for passports, the CS highlighted that after the Rapid Result Initiative, the systems will be audited to be able to produce passports within a week, with a long-term goal to reduce the production days to three.
“We are going to work through this process and starting Monday we will be very busy. After the RRI we will audit our system to be able to produce passports within seven days. Our vision will eventually be to reduce the seven days to three days,” Kindiki said.
The decision was informed by the ministry's plan to decongest Nyayo House and other centres and ensure a seamless process of acquiring passports.
Among the changes included the revision of the working hours in the passport printing offices to run between 7am and 9pm to maximise service delivery.
The CS also conducted impromptu visits to the offices to ensure the government introduces policies to dissuade idlers who typically hang around immigration offices from doing so to enable smoothen service delivery.
Kindiki also revealed that the passport backlog reported at 42,000 on May 31 might have been understated.
He said that a further audit of the system estimated the backlog was approximately 120,000 applications.
Passport issuance had been a problem, with Kenyans complaining of having to 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.
