At least 12,000 Kenyans have collected their passports from the immigration departments in the last ten days.
Immigration PS Julius Bitok said there were 97,675 uncollected passports in the eight passport application centres as of August 13.
On August 1, there were 110, 059 uncollected passports.
“To ease passport delivery, the Department of immigration services has suspended the requirement for applicants to book an appointment to collect their passports. Applicants whose names appear in the links below are advised to collect their passports at the station where they submitted their application,” he said in a statement.
However, some Kenyans who applied for passports last year still claim there is no progress.
“Yangu toka mwezi wa kumi last year na mpaka saa hii iko loading (I applied in October last year, but the system still shows the ‘loading’ stage),” said one Kenyan on social media.
Others said the immigration tracking system still indicates their applications were at the 'printing' or 'dispatch' stages after many months.
In his statement, Bitok said they have ‘reformed’ the application processes to decongest workstations and speed up services.
“As a result of these interventions, we have cleared the historical backlog of unprinted passports in our systems,” he said.
He also said that in line with the Presidential directive to facilitate travel for Kenyans pursuing job opportunities outside the country, there is a dedicated Migrant Labour counter to fast-track passport applications.
“Applicants seeking this service are advised to present their papers, which must include documents of proof of intent issued by the relevant institution,” he said.
The PS also said the department of immigration services has suspended the requirement for applicants to book an appointment to collect their passports.
“To free up limited storage space, applicants are notified that DIS will dispose of all uncollected passports Six (6) months from the date of this notice,” he said.
Currently, most of the uncollected passports are in Nairobi (50,161), followed by Kisumu (10,234), Embu (9,075), Mombasa (8,154), Nakuru (8,615), Eldoret (6,876), Kisii (6,809), Kericho (236), and Bungoma (92).
