The Immigration Department in Kenya is upbeat in meeting its target starting July 1, 2020, of processing passports the same day they are applied for.
The Department’s Director-General Alexander Muteshi in an interview with a local daily said they are hell-bent on complying with the directive by President Uhuru Kenyatta.
He said they are working overtime to ensure this takes off in earnest and without any hitches.
“The same day service delivery to citizens is a presidential initiative that our CS, Dr Fred Matiang’i, is keen to have all agencies under the Ministry of Interior and Co-ordination of National Government deliver on by July 1st, 2020,” said Muteshi.
He added that the question of human capacity required to ensure the targets are met has been reviewed and appropriate steps are being taken.
“The Directorate of Immigration has assessed and identified machinery and human resource as some of the major militating factors against the delivery on this objective. The government is already addressing our requirements by availing the necessary resource configuration to fully implement this directive,” he added.
So far, a passport replacement is being done in a day, a rehearsal of what the Department will be doing from July 1, 2020, on new passport applications.
Muteshi said the one-day passport replacement pilot has achieved “40 percent of the performance target.”
The Interior Ministry which houses the Immigration Department early in the year said crucial documents such as identity cards, birth and death certificates will be processed in a day.
He said the same for Kenyans outside Nairobi will only take a few days adding that “Kenyans cannot be slaves in their own country.”
“By 1st of July this year, issuance of a document and everything should be a same day service unless you are applying from outside Nairobi like for instance an ID or passport,” Matiang’i charged.
