Online passport application system will help to eliminate unscrupulous middlemen

Government has launched an online passport application system which will help to eliminate corruption and unscrupulous middle men who defraud Ugandans seeking to get passports.

The online passport applications process is also expected to improve the turnover of passports from seven days to 48 hours on average.

Addressing the media in Kampala on Thursday, the minister of state for Internal Affairs Mario Obiga Kania ,said the system will help to reduce congestion at the passport office and most importantly reduce on the turn over time.

"It will reduce on the processing time of the passports from 7 working days which is our current standard practice to 48 hours,"he said.

He said that the system will help to eliminate all the middlemen who have been taking money from Ugandans seeking for passports for many years.

"We have had many unfortunate stories of those who try to go through middle middlemen and brokers who at the end of the day are conned. You don't need a middleman or any agent to access the facility, "he said.

The online application process has come with revised fees.

Ordinary passport will cost Shs 250,000, official passports will cost Shs 400,000, diplomatic passports will cost Shs 500,000  and express processing will cost  an extra Shs 150,000.

Obiga said people who had already paid using the old fees will have to apply again by paying the revised fee in order to get a new passport.

"I would like to remind all those who paid 150,000 shillings for passports and they have not yet got them to go online, apply for the passport a fresh and pay the new passport fees which is Shs 250,000 and seek for a refund for the earlier paid 150,000 shillings from Uganda Revenue Authority, "he said.

Garry Kizito from URA said the verification will be done from the ministry of Internal Affairs to confirm that the service was provided against the payment.

The immigration officers also called upon all those who applied for the passports manually to ensure that application are submitted to the passport control office before 31 December 2019.

Manual application will continue for the time being although it will completely be replaced by online application system next year.