Ministry of Interior through the State Department of Immigration Services on Tuesday, April 30, announced that application and collection of passports had been momentarily put on hold.
The State Department announced that this was caused by a system failure which was being addressed.
“We regret to inform our clients that we are currently experiencing a downtime that has affected our normal passport application receiving and collection services,” a statement from the State Department read in part.
“Our engineers are working to resolve the issue and ensure the resumption of normal services as soon as possible.”
Affected applicants were informed that alternative dates would be communicated as soon as possible.
This happened barely a week after Interior Cabinet Secretary Kithure Kindiki announced that the process of acquiring a passport would be 21 days from the date of application.
Incidentally, the 21-day cap on issuance of passports was to be effective starting May 1, almost the same time the system has experienced a downtime.
The downtime is expected to bring the passport backlog to close to a million as it currently stands at 724,000.
This will also inconvenience Kenyans seeking to work abroad under President William Ruto's human capital export program.
In November 2023, President Ruto announced that one of the ways the Kenya Kwanza administration would deal with the unemployment crisis would be through sending at least 5,000 Kenyans abroad weekly.
To ensure the process of acquiring passports was smooth, the National Treasury facilitated funds to modernise the passport production equipment.
Additionally, 17 people from the Nyayo Immigration Centre had been apprehended after being accused of extorting passport seekers as well as undermining efficiency of the application process.
