CS Kindiki meets Immigration Officers at Nyayo House

Interior Cabinet Secretary Kithure Kindiki during the meeting with senior Immigration officers. [Courtesy: Interior]

Interior Cabinet Secretary Kithure Kindiki has met up with senior officials from the Immigration Department to review the implemented measures aimed at clearing the passport backlog.

This is after the CS made several random visits to Nyayo House in a bid to check the progress the immigration team has made.

During the meeting that took place on Friday, September 8, the recently established operational and policy reforms were reviewed.

"The 10-day countdown to clear the historical backlog of pending 40,000 plus passport applications is on. Deployment of day and night shifts to facilitate full-capacity printing of passports, procurement of modern printing equipment, and recruitment of additional immigration officers will help us resolve the systemic challenges that have hampered service delivery," said Kindiki.

Kindiki was accompanied by Immigration Principal Secretary Julius Bitok and Citizen Services Director General Evelyn Cheluget.

Yesterday during one of the impromptu visits, Kindiki said that there are production issues as the new machine they ordered is yet to arrive.

Additionally, the processing of good conduct certificates is still a challenge although the CS assured citizens that efforts to fix the remaining production issues are underway.

Some of the netizens who seem to have gotten services from Nyayo House say that the measures taken were efficient.

One of them, John Njui, posted on X saying," I was there yesterday. And the process was smooth."

"I applied for my passport in January and I received it this week," posted Rehana Ismail on the X app.

Kindiki had earlier said that he received an anonymous tip that one of the things leading to passport backlog is corruption.

He said that he was aware of the corruption going on in the institution and promised to get rid of the corrupt cartels, who asked for money from Kenyans in order to print out their passports.

The ministry established some measures including restricting Nyayo House access to staff members and citizens.