Interior Cabinet Secretary Kithure Kindiki Thursday vowed to crack down and clean up the Nyayo House, the headquarters of immigration department.
He blamed corrupt officials for the interminable delays in passport issuance and processing.
The situation has been worsened by the unilateral decision by immigration officials to terminate a contract with Postal Corporation of Kenya to distribute the printed passports.
Immigration had entered into agreement to distribute all printed passports as a way of dealing with crowds jamming to collect the documents.
It is not clear what prompted the department to take the steps, which some insiders termed ill-advised and counter productive.
Read: Deadline For Migration To e-passport Extended To December 31
Kindiki stated that there are officers at Nyayo House accepting bribes for services that the government provides for free.
Speaking before the Regional Integration Committee on Thursday at the Parliament Buildings, he vowed to clean up Nyayo house once and for all.
“I will clean up Nyayo house once and for all. We will seal off Nyayo house & name it a scene of crime. How do Kenyans cue from 6AM? It won’t be business as usual. We must clean up Nyayo house,” he said.
He added some of Kenya’s ongoing problems, such as insecurity and terrorism, can be traced back to corruption at Nyayo House.
“If you go to Wajir, 21 year olds are waiting for IDs for three years now,” he added.
Read Also: This is Where You Can Collect Your Huduma Namba Cards in Nairobi
According to the CS, the passport backlog currently stands at 58,000, with the Department of Immigration and Citizen Services processing approximately 5,000 passports daily.
He stated that plans are in the works to issue passports in seven days, and that in the future, the issuance time will be reduced to three days, and 24 hours in the event of an emergency.
Kindiki said Kenyans must still wait 21 days for their cards to be issued, but that in the near future, ID cards will be replaced with a Digital Maisha number, which will translate to a Death Certificate number upon death.
There has been an outcry over the crisis of issuing passports at the Immigration department.
Officials blame the breakdown of a production machine for the crisis while others cite non payment by the government for the provision of the service for the situation.
Email your news TIPS to Editor@kahawatungu.com or WhatsApp +254707482874
Email your news TIPS to Editor@Kahawatungu.com — this is our only official communication channel
