All passports will henceforth be printed in Nairobi as the government moves to centralise the issuance of the travel documents by introducing the electronic format.

At the same time, there will no longer be manual application of passports with Kenyans now expected to apply for the same online.

While it is currently possible to apply and get passports from Kisumu and Mombasa, going forward, the two centres will only be collection points for the accompanying documents like birth certificates and presentation of biometric data.

The immigration department is also expanding their document drop points to include Eldoret, Garissa, Embu and Nakuru to reduce the traffic at Nyayo House.

Immigration Services director Major General (rtd) Gordon Kihalangwa said a total of 2,000 passports will be printed daily through the new system compared to the old which only printed 800 passports a day.

“Previously we could print 600 passports in Nairobi and 100 passports in Kisumu and Mombasa respectively but with the centralised operations, we shall be able to print all the passports here in Nairobi,” Kihalangwa said.

He said delivery to their Kisumu and Mombasa branches will be delivered through courier services.

The department officially started issuing the new e-passports yesterday with at least 1,800 citizens having already submitted their applications via e-citizen.

Kihalangwa said over 16,000 Kenyans who are yet to collect their passports should go back to the immigration department and submit their biodata in order to be issued with the new electronic travel documents, free of charge.

He said the backlog was occasioned by the fact that the department was running two systems to test the printing of the new passports which slowed the printing of the old generation ones. He added that those who had already acquired the old passports should use them for the next two years before they are phased out.

According to Kihalangwa, it will take those seeking renewal of their passports a maximum of three working days to get the new biometric passport.

New applicants will however have to wait for eight working days before they acquire the electronic passport.

The biometric passports, which have been implemented at a cost of Sh500 million, are embedded with a microchip which will store data visually displayed on the data page of the passport, the holder’s picture stored in digital form and a unique chip identification number.

Source: The Star

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