Passport delays to persist until November, says Bitok
The delay in the processing of passports will persist for the next three months.
The delay in the processing of passports will persist for the next three months, Immigration and Citizen Services Principal Secretary Julius Bitok has said.
Mr Bitok yesterday told MPs that a pending Bill of Sh580 million for the purchase of passport booklets from a Pakistani company is causing the delay.
He told the National Assembly Committee on Regional Integration that normal operations will resume in November.
Mr Bitok explained to the lawmakers that the current backlog was created by a pending Bill of Sh530 million that was earmarked for purchase of booklets in the financial year 2021/2022 but was re-allocated to other areas by the previous administration.
“The problem started two years ago when the government focussed on Huduma Namba and forgot about the issuance of passports,” Mr Bitok told MPs.
The PS told the committee that apart from the Sh530 million that was re-allocated, a further Sh31, 572,200 is owed to a company which provides the Automated Fingerprint Identification System and the servicing of the machines.
He said Sh20 million is owed to MS Arians which supplied parts for the machines.
The PS said the two-edged e-passport printing machines with a capacity to produce 800 passports per day broke down in April due to age, a factor that aggravated the backlog as a replacement could only be procured from the manufacturer in Germany.
He, however, told MPs that the laser engraving unit for the personalisation machine — known as M2 — has since been fixed but requires urgent servicing.
Mr Bitok said the current servers used to process passports were procured seven years ago and have since been overwhelmed by the numerous applications.
“The directorate has been procuring e-passports booklets on time. However, the supply and delivery has been a challenge due to delayed payments caused by untimely release of the exchequer and inadequate budgetary provision. Delayed exchequer has resulted in huge pending Bills,” Mr Bitok said.
There is, however, hope as the PS told MPs that the two machines which broke down have since been repaired and are currently processing 3,000 passports per day against a demand of 4,500, with teams working both day and night to clear the 88,295 backlog.
“We have two teams, one working at night producing 1,500 and another working during the day also processing 1,500 passports... I want to assure the public that we are doing everything possible to clear the backlog,” Mr Bitok said.
Currently, there are 31, 456 passport applications — 18,009 are at the recommendation stage, 39, 839 are at approval stage and 88,295 exported applications.
This means that there are 177,599 applications against the 100,064 passport booklets currently in stock.
Mr Bitok said the department has already started the procurement of additional 305,000 passport booklets to address the high demand.
He said the department has opened a communication channel where Kenyans with urgent need to travel on grounds of medical, sports, work, academics, official duty are assisted so that they don’t miss out.
Kenyans with such a request, the PS said, can engage the department through WhatsApp, email, twitter and walk-ins at counters 16 and 17 at Nyayo House.
