Immigration Department Says Another 13,290 Passports Ready For Collection

 

The Directorate of Immigration has cleared an additional 13,290 passport applications and relayed the vital documents to regional centres for distribution in the 4th week of the ongoing Rapid Results Initiative (RRI).

The names for the passport owners have been published at the Immigrations Department Website with owners advised to collect them between October 16 and October 19.

Of the 13, 2890 dispatched passports, the Nairobi office is holding 6021 passports Embu (1398), Eldoret (1386) and Kisumu (1262) The Mombasa regional office currently holds 1221passports with Kisii and Nakuru offices holding 1201 and 801 passports respectively.

On the first week of the RRI exercise, 22,353 were cleared for collection followed by 15, 354 passports cleared on the second week while 11, 278 passports were cleared on the third week.

With the addition of the 13,290 passports for the fourth week, a total of 62, 275 passports have been cleared for collection.

‘Permanent efficiency’

Interior Cabinet Secretary Kithure Kindiki launched the RRI campaign on September 25 in a bid to clear a soaring passport backlogs amid a crisis at the Immigration Department blamed on a broken printer and corruption.

“The Government will continue to align our procedures and delivery environment to ensure we bring permanent efficiency in the immigration department and sustain the war against corruption to win back public confidence,” Kindiki said in statement at the time.

Kindiki reported the number of uncollected passports, at the time, as 87,574 asking owners to pick them promptly.

At the time, Kindiki warned that the government had resolved to declare uncollected passports invalid once applicants fail to pick them on schedule.

He said that the government will invoke Section 5 of the Disposal of Uncollected Goods Act, and Section 31 of the Citizenship and Immigration Act in disposing off documents of those who fail to collect them within the set-out time frame.

“All applicants whose passports are ready must collect them. 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 therefore we will withdraw and dispose off the documents at the expiry of the requite notice period,” he said.

He added that those who fail to collect the passports will have to re-apply again and pay penalties to get new documents.       BY CAPITAL NEWS