By Philip Wafula & Rashul Adidi
The immigration department in the Ministry of Internal Affairs is raking in at least Shs800m daily from all its four regional offices and Kampala-based headquarters, an official has said.
Last Friday, the directorate of citizenship and immigration control opened a new passport office in Jinja city, which will serve Busoga sub-region and the Eastern part of the country, becoming the fourth regional office after Gulu, Mbale and Mbarara.
The new regional office will be responsible for, among other immigration services, issuing new e-passports, personalisation, and issuance of permits and passes; issuance, renewals, and extension of visas, inspection, and legal services under the decentralisation programme.
The Ministry of Internal Affairs Spokesperson, Mr Simon Mundeyi, says the aforementioned services will do away with the bureaucracy caused by going to Resident District Commissioners (RDCs), LC1 and LC2 chairpersons.
“Currently, in a day we raise Shs800m in revenue that goes to Uganda Revenue Authority (URA); and because of the e-system, we no longer have cases of duplicate passports,” Mr Mundeyi said.
He further explained that the newly-opened Jinja service centre has the capacity to issue 3,000 passports per day, adding that due to the e-system of passport application and the ease in accessing services, their revenue and the number of those seeking passports has also increased.
Data from the Ministry of Internal Affairs indicates that so far, over one million e-passports have been issued since they were unveiled in December 2018.
The director immigration and citizenship control, Maj Gen Apollo Kasiita-Gowa, said the decentralisation programme is aimed at decongesting the Kampala office and bringing services nearer to the people.
He said: “Previously, the enrollment center was only one and that was in Kampala; we found that there was a lot of congestion, we had some many clients and the office space was small, so we opened up other regional centers.
“First one we did was Mbarara, second one was Mbale, Gulu and now Jinja that will cater for the people of Busoga. Soon, after this, we shall be opening the one in Arua; so, this has helped us to decongest the activities in Kampala to allow people to go to other regional centers for the services.”
The Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Lt Gen Joseph Musanyufu, urged the locals to seize the opportunity and access immigration services, rather than travel to Kampala and “cause congestion”.
The regional manager, Mr Jacob Siminyu, says they have so far issued 600 passports since the (Jinja) centre inception, and warned the general public against using middlemen to get passports.
“We don’t expect you (applicants) to be corrupt enough to look for someone to help you, and if we see anyone at our office trying to extort, we shall deal with them using the available instruments,” he warned.
Residents in Jinja city have anonymously expressed excitement, saying the development will reduce other associated costs and time.
