The Ministry of Internal Affairs has again reported an increase in the number of uncollected passports, particularly at their centre at Kyambogo in Kampala.
Speaking on Monday, Internal Affairs spokesperson, Simon Mundeyi said they are currently stuck with over 50,000 passports which are uncollected.
“We have so many passports from 2019 up to this year. For example, this year alone, between January to April, we have 2000 passports which have not been collected yet they were applied for this year,” Mundeyi said.
He explained that the high numbers of uncollected passports pose a challenge to their storage facilities.
“Since every day we have new applicants, having so many uncollected passports poses a challenge to our stores.”
Mudenyi said this accumulation of uncollected passports is partly due to owners not being able to receive messages asking them to collect their documents.
“In some rare circumstances, the passports are ready, messages are sent to them to collect them but their phones are off or they don’t have network. If a message is sent and the phone is off or doesn’t have network, it will bounce and will never come back,” Mundeyi said.
Internal Affairs also explained that the accumulation of uncollected passports is also due to a nosedive in export of Ugandan labour to Middle East of late.
“Most of these passports belong to girls who were supposed to be taken to Middle East and since business has nosedived, they lost interest in the documents as they returned to their villages.”
Mundeyi however asked whoever applied for a passport to pick it or check the Internal Affairs website to find out the status of their documents.