Due to printing equipment failure, nearly 60,000 Kenyans who applied for passports since March have been left without them. The government has now declared that it will borrow machines from private companies to reduce the backlog.
Kithure Kindiki, Kenya’s Cabinet Secretary for Interior and National Administration, claims that the issue extends beyond the state of the nation’s present passport production equipment. Additionally, dishonest individuals demand bribes from applicants.
He promised last week to overhaul Kenya’s immigration department, and on Monday it was revealed that daily passport printing would increase to 5,000.
Kenyans have become increasingly frustrated and dissatisfied in recent months as a result of delays in the issuance of identity cards, driver’s licences, birth certificates, and police clearance certificates due to administrative inefficiencies.