New passport books arrive to ease shortage

Kampala. A consignment of paper for printing new passports arrived in the country on Tuesday, a development that is expected to ease the current shortage.
Yesterday, Daily Monitor broke the story of a shortage of passports in the country, with directors of external labour recruitment agencies claiming it had disrupted their plans to flag off new recruits.

They said officials at the Directorate of Citizenship and Immigration Control in the Ministry of Internal Affairs had told them to wait until between April 10 and April 15 for the new passports.
An Immigration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, yesterday told this newspaper that the passport printing material has arrived and work has resumed immediately.

However, the ministry spokesperson, Mr Jacob Siminyu, refuted claims of any shortage of passports, insisting there are only delays in issuing of electronic passports to new applicants. He said the Immigration directorate is now implementing the government policy of issuing e-passports that came into force in December. The e-passports are replacing the machine readable passports.

“Prior to the roll out of the new e-passports, many Ugandans applied for passports but were advised to wait for the new e-passports if they were not travelling urgently, which they did. Currently, we are issuing passports, beginning with those applicants who applied earlier,” Mr Siminyu stated in an e-mail response.
He said when the e-passports are ready, the applicants are notified by SMS, adding that on daily basis, officials send up to 12,000 alerts, announcing specific days for picking the passports.
Mr Siminyu, however, admitted there are also delays in the processing of the e-passports due to transitional challenges.

Delays
“I thank those Ugandans who have been responding promptly whenever we have called them to come for the passports. However, due to the transition, some applications may experience some delay,” he stated.
He advised applicants who experience delay to report to the passports supervisor in Room 9 at the Immigration department or to the public relations office.