The ministry of internal Affairs is mandated to ensure intetnal security, keeping of law and order and ensuring citizenship identification, protection and preservation.
Today, Monday 26th 2021, the ministry of internal Affairs have ensure a sustained and effective service delivery of Immigration services to the people of Uganda and those who visit and or immigrate to Uganda .
In the last 4 years of our government, the ministry of internal Affairs has taken several important steps in improving the systems for the delivery of immigration services in the country.
Enhancement of the e-Immigration system to facilitate the application of various immigration services which include Visas, work permits and passes, the e- immigration Border management system has enabled has them to offer seamless border control services at Entebbe international Airport, it has also enhanced the capabilities for post entry migration management through offering real time notification of expired immigration facilities and act as a measure to conform to the requirements of the international civil Aviation Authority and system integrations with various MDAs such as Uganda Revenue Authority, National identification and registration Authority are the ministry of internal Affairs steps taken to improve on system delivery of immigration services.
The permanent secretary MR. Benon Mutambi while addressing the media today at their headquarters , Kampala highlighted on the electronic passport system.
“The introduction of the electronic passport system is one of the most successful citizen-centric activities of the ministry of internal Affairs. With globalization and stability in the country, the number of Uganda citizens travelling abroad for tourism , business, conferencs, jobs and education, has increased rapidly.
As a result, over the yearsyears, we have seen a growth in the demand for passports.The growth in demand has also attributed to the need to replace the old passport with the Electronic passport as a deadline for validity of the old passport which was 31st January 2021 and has been extended to 4th April 2022″.
The COVID-19 pandemic, worldwide restricted the travel were they imposed more restrictions from March up to July,as associated with lockdown which accumulated with a backlog on the online system because people continued to apply without being served.
After 6 months of lockdown, there was a gradual easing of restrictions at work places and our operations resumed but only at 30% capacity due to the standard operating procedures set by government to curb the spread of Covid-19. In October 2020,Entebbe international Airport and land borders were opened and this marked a new demand phase for the passport services.
Due to job losaes , many Ugandans are opting to take up employment services abroad and this has brought pressure on the service from 1000 passports to 2100 passports daily.
Labour export resumed in December 2020 and toto-date, the number of domestic workers clearly increased, in December 2020 491 labour exportexport and 14166 passport issued, in January 2021, 2708are labour export and 11625 are passport issued, in February 2021, 5256 are labour export while 14244 are the passport issued, in March, 8666 are labour export while 22210 are passport issued and in April 18894 to- date are passport issued.
Passport enrollment services have been decentralized to regional centres to ease service delivery. On the 29th March 2021,Mbarara regional immigration office operationalized the passport enrollment system and its operatiooperations are being ramped up to ease the presaure at the ministry headquarters. Mbale and Gulu
