The State Department of Immigration has announced a system interruption affecting normal passport application receiving and collection services.
In a statement, the department stated that they were experiencing a downtime that affected activities. The department also stated that affected applicants will be provided with alternative dates as soon as possible.
Additionally, they apologised for the inconvenience and assured Kenyans that restoration works were currently underway to ensure the resumption of normal services as soon as possible.
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"We regret to inform our clients that we are currently experiencing a downtime that has affected our normal passport application receiving and collection services. Our engineers are working to resolve the issue and ensure the resumption of normal services as soon as possible. Affected applicants will be provided with alternative dates as soon as possible. We apologize for the inconvenience caused," the statement by the department reads in parts.
We regret to inform our clients that we are currently experiencing a downtime that has affected our normal passport application receiving and collection services. Our engineers are working to resolve the issue and ensure the resumption of normal services as soon as possible.— Immigration Services | Kenya (@ImmigrationDept) April 30, 2024
Passport processing
The latest comes a week after Interior Cabinet Secretary (CS) Kithure Kindiki announced that passport applications will take three days to be processed from September 1, 2024.
The CS stated that the government had addressed issues that caused delays in the processing of the passports adding that the operations have been made possible by the acquisition of printing machines.
"The Government reiterates its commitment to ensure that effective 1st May 2024, all applications for the Kenyan passport will be processed within 21 days from the date of application. This period will reduce to 7 days from August 1, 2024, and 3 days from 1st September 2024," Kindiki said.
“The historical backlog in the processing of the Kenyan passport has been conclusively resolved and the bottlenecks that had resulted in the frustration of many applicants addressed,” Kindiki said in a statement.
At the same time, the CS also announced that the number of pending passports which was at 724,000 by March 11, had reduced significantly.
"The Directorate of Immigration will embark on a Rapid Results Initiative (RRI) to expedite the collection of passports, and publish names of the applicants and the designated collection points by next week."
