PASSPORT SEEKERS STUCK AS GOVERNMENT RUNS OUT OF BOOKLETS

By Our reporter

The Directorate of Immigration Control (DCIC) under Ministry of Foreign Affairs is not printing passports due to shortage of booklets,

The crisis according,  is result of overwhelming demand of the new passports after government banned use of old booklets that expired on April 4.

3 years ago, the immigrations department had announced it would ban the use of old passports.

Ever since, the machine-readable passports were declared invalid for international travel and were replaced by international East African e-passports, there has been delay in acquiring new ones.

The crisis has generated frustration among those intending to travel abroad for business, medical check up, visit and emergencies.

Whereas many Ugandans have been affected by the shortage, labour companies are mostly counting huge losses.

Sources say, the crisis erupted due to lack of enough preparedness after declaring the machine readable passports invalid.

The Permanent Secretary of Immigrations Brig Johnson Namanya couldn’t respond to our messages when reached for explanation.

The immigration and internal affairs ministry as a whole is run by UPDF soldiers led by Gen Kahinda Otafiire  as Minister and Gen David Muhoozi as State Minister.

Whereas some other top officials at Jinja road based office denied there was shortage of booklets in the passport office, they admitted that they have a huge challenge in delivering the passports from the day of applying.

“Somehow we are overwhelmed by the demand but we are trying to manage that,” of the top officials said.

Others attributed the crisis to incompetence.

In the past, acquiring an express passport would take two days, now it’s three weeks to one month.

This means it is very hard for an individual to respond to an emergency abroad when he or she doesn’t have new East African E-passport.