The State Department of Immigration has announced a downtime in its system used in application and collection of passports.
In a statement on Tuesday, the department said the downtime has affected normal passport services including application, receiving, and collection.
However, the Principal Secretary Julius Bitok-led department assured that its engineers were working to resolve the hitch.
“We regret to inform our clients that we are currently experiencing a downtime that has affected our normal passport application receiving and collection services,” read the statement.
“Our engineers are working to resolve the issue and ensure the resumption of normal services as soon as possible.”
According to the statement, affected applicants will be provided with alternative dates “as soon as possible”.
The update came despite an assurance by the Ministry of Interior that challenges in the department had been addressed.
Kindiki’s promise to reduce passport waiting days
In a statement on April 22, Interior Cabinet Secretary Kithure Kindiki announced that his Ministry had acquired passport printing machines meant to reduce the timelines of processing applications.
“The historical backlog in the processing of the Kenyan passport has been conclusively resolved and the bottlenecks that had resulted in frustration of many applicants addressed,” Kindiki said in a statement.
In addition to acquiring the new machine, Kindiki also assured that all pending bills owed to suppliers of various materials had been cleared and thereby assured smooth delivery of services.
“The Government has facilitated the acquisition of adequate passport printing equipment, paid all the pending supplier bills, and addressed the supply chain constraints,” he added.
At the time, Kindiki promised to ensure all applications for the Kenyan passport will be processed within 21 days from the date of application effective from May 1, 2024.
In addition, the Interior CS promised that the waiting period would be reduced to 7 days from 1st August 2024 and 3 days from 1st September 2024.
However, the latest setback in the downtime extends what have been a dark history marring the immigration department characterized by reports of cases of graft and delays.
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