Kenya Government Makes Crucial Step in Issuance of Passports

The Kenya government has acquired two new passport printing machines to ease issuance of the crucial travel documents. The State Department for Immigration and Citizen Service says the arrival of the machines – backed by new modern service halls – has resolved all the issues that previously hindered the application and issuance of new passports.

Mr Julius Bitok, the Principal Secretary of the Department of Immigration, said processes have been streamlined to ensure faster generation of travel documents.
“We have two new machines and modern banking halls and we continue improving our systems,” Mr Bitok says. “We are now producing the passports very fast.”

The new new passport printing machines will be producing 600 copies per hour. According to Mr Bitok, Kenyans will be able to get their travel documents within 14 working days.

Thanks to the improved efficiency at the Immigration offices, Mr Bitok confirmed that hundreds of passports have already been printed, effectively clearing the backlog that had been a major concern for Kenyans. “Let us collect our passports from the Immigration offices. There are 110,000 passports that have been printed and are ready for pickup. This is a huge number,” said the PS.

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Passport documents are usually printed outside the country for security reasons leaving only the applicant’s Bio-data page to be printed locally upon application. Mr Bitok also revealed that the Government is in the process of establishing additional centres across the country to further facilitate passport issuance.

“We continue opening immigration offices. We recently opened the Kericho and Bungoma offices. We are now going to Nyeri and Garissa. We are also thinking of opening an office in Machakos so that we take these services closer to the people,” he said.

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