The National Assembly has recommended that Kenyans applying for passports receive the travel document within three days of submitting their application.
Members of Parliament (MPs), through the National Assembly’s Committee on National Administration and Internal Security, have urged the government to open more Immigration offices across the country to make it easier to acquire passports.
The MPs said many applicants are forced to make long and costly distances to access Nyayo House or any of the eight regional Immigration offices.
“With adequate resourcing, targeting a maximum of three days for applicants to be issued with passports is realistic…This should be feasible, especially with the opening of more offices in other parts of the country,” said Narok West MP Gabriel Tongoyo.
Speaking during the presentation of the State Department for Immigration and Citizen Services’ budget estimates for the 2024/25 Financial Year and supplementary estimates for FY 2023/24, Tongoyo lauded the government for introducing reforms that have improved the Directorate for Immigration's efficiency.
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“We were used to seeing long queues of people at Nyayo House even after 5PM on working days, but we note that nowadays, those scenes are gone,” said Mandera East MP Hussein Abdirahman.
Immigration PS Julius Bitok revealed that the Department has been allocated Kes 15.151 billion instead of the Kes 15.873 billion it requested in the Budget Policy Statement.
Of the amount, Kes 10.145 billion will be spent on the recurrent budget, while Kes 5.091 billion will be committed to development projects.
Under the second Supplementary estimate for FY 2023/2024, the State Department’s revised budget was Kes 12.633 billion, with the bulk of the amount, Kes 9.136 billion, going to the recurrent budget.
Further, Bitok told the MPs that the Department had successfully cleared the backlog of around 700,000 passports and invested heavily in equipment and technology using funds obtained as Appropriation-in-Aid from Immigration and other services.
“With Parliament’s support, we have dealt with the issue of passport backlog and instituted important reforms, including creating two banking halls, buying two printers, and increasing personnel.”
He also cited the digitization of over 16,000 government services on eCitizen the introduction of the visa-free entry regime in January and the Electronic Travel Authorisation (eTA) that has processed over 500,000 visitors to Kenya among the Department’s milestones.
In addition, the PS appealed for more funding to roll out the newly introduced digital ID, the Maisha Card and its supporting infrastructure, and the Shirika Plan, which proposes moving refugees out of camps by integrating them with host communities.
