By Lauryne Akoth
Kenyans can now breathe a sigh of relief as the government has announced the clearance of passport backlogs at Nyayo House.
Principal Secretary, of the State Department for Immigration & Citizen Services, Julius Bitok made the announcement on Thursday. “In terms of passports, the Immigration Department is now doing very well. We don’t have a backlog, we have been working day and night for the last two months.” Said Bitok.
He additionally mentioned that Kenyans will now experience significantly faster passport processing times compared to previous procedures. He thanked the Government of Kenya for providing the resources required to expedite the passport allocation process.
“About two weeks ago, we received more than 100,000 booklets and there is another 100,000 coming in next week. I think we are good to go, and we thank the government for giving us the resources required and the money we needed to streamline the issue of passports.” Said Bitok.
The PS also assured that henceforth kenyans will enjoy immigration services as they have commenced the construction of two state-of-the-art banking halls in Nyayo House; a hall for the collection of passports in the southern wing of Nyayo House, and one for biometrics.
He also announced the increase in biometric counters from 10 to 20 to accelerate the process. Bitok urged Kenyans to utilize the SMS service, 22222, to check the status of their passport applications.
The PS also credited the rise in visitors to the country to Ruto’s proclamation of Kenya as a visa-free nation. ” Kenya is a visa-free country. We have been able to receive more than 350,000 visitors in the last three months, and it is 40% higher than when we had e-visas, clearly the new policy by President Ruto to make the country visa-free is paying off.” praised Bitok.