Immigration department turns to night shifts to reduce passports backlog

Police officer walk past Kenyans lining up at the Immigration services passport control offices at Jogoo house, Nairobi on July 1, 2022 [Elvis Ogina, Standard]

The Immigration Department has said that they plan to introduce night shifts in order to deal with the passports backlog.

Acting Director General of the State Department of Immigration Evelyn Chelugut said that the shifts run all week long.

She said that the government is working round the clock to deal with passport issues that have bedeviled the country.

Chelugut was addressing the media on Monday, August 28, at Nyayo House where she said that the shifts will be 14 hours long.

Those applying for passports can submit their applications between 7am and 9pm.

She added that the department moving forward will have dedicated counters to address urgent cases like education and medical travel.

According to Chelugut, the plan to purchase a new printing machine is underway to ensure that the printing of passports is done for 24 hours.

She appealed to the staff to serve Kenyans efficiently attending to their passport needs without discrimination.

This comes days after the Interior Cabinet Secretary Kithure Kindiki told a Parliamentary Committee that Nyayo House should be cordoned off as "a scene of crime" due to corruption.

He promised the MPs that he would personally supervise the clean-up of the application process which he claimed had been infiltrated by criminals to take advantage of Kenyans.

Kindiki claimed that criminals were openly extorting money from Kenyans in order to speed up the process of acquiring a passport.He said that the passport backlog stands at 58,000, adding that the department was processing approximately 5,000 passports a day.

Kindiki added that they have a plan in place to reduce the waiting period for applicants from 7 days to 3 days, and 24 hours for emergency cases.