The Government has launched a 30-day Rapid Results Initiative (RRI) aimed at expediting the distribution of uncollected passports at the Immigration Department’s Nyayo House Headquarters in Nairobi and all regional offices across the country.
In a statement on Tuesday, September 19, Interior CS Kithure Kindiki urged the owners of 87,574 passports, which are currently available but have not been collected, to collect their documents starting on Monday, September 25, 2023.
CS Kindiki said designated collection points in Nairobi and various regional immigration offices will be announced through various media channels and social media platforms. This information will be made available starting today and subsequently every Wednesday throughout the RRI period.
To facilitate an organized collection process, the Immigration Department will release a list every Wednesday, featuring all applicants whose passports are scheduled for pickup in the following week.
Kenyans who do not collect their passports within the specified timeframe, and upon the expiration of the notification period, risk having their passports disposed of in accordance with the law. Additionally, they may face penalties when applying for passports in the future.
The distribution of uncollected passports is as follows:
- Nyayo House (Nairobi): 36,170
- Embu Regional Office: 10,409
- Eldoret Regional Office: 9,938
- Kisumu Regional Office: 9,515
- Nakuru Regional Office: 8,023
- Kisii Regional Office: 7,971
- Mombasa Regional Office: 5,424
“Delivery of uncollected passports is an integral part of addressing the historical backlog and to avert a recurrence, the Immigration Department is at the tail end of procuring modern printing equipment that will triple the production of passports,” Kindiki said.
The CS at the same time announced that the passport backlog at Nyayo House has been resolved.
“That backlog which was in the upward of over 120, 000 passports has been technically addressed. It has been resolved. In the process of resolving that backlog, we discovered that when we started addressing this challenge and started production of a significant number of passports,” Kindiki said.
He added: “24-hour shifts in processing and production of passports continue. Emergency applications for persons seeking medical care abroad, students due for admission in learning institutions outside Kenya and people who have secured job opportunities that have a clear reporting deadline will be processed expeditiously.”
