The Ministry of Internal Affairs has said the number of foreign nationals seeking to fraudulently acquire Ugandan passports has gone up.
Addressing journalists on Monday, the Internal Affairs spokesperson, Simon Mundeyi said the mad dash has been occasioned by the strength of the Ugandan passport worldwide.
“There are some people trying to acquire our passports because they are selling like hotcake. Pele from elsewhere want to come here and acquire our passports and I can tell you a Ugandan passport can take you anywhere in the world since no country has outlawed our passports,” Mundeyi said.
The Internal Affairs spokesperson said since some countries have had their passports outlawed or blacklisted in other countries, citizens of those countries have devised means of getting Ugandan passports to use them.
“Those people are coming to Uganda and stay here for a while and craft ways of applying for Ugandan passports.”
Mundeyi said just last week, a group of Congolese nationals were arrested for fraudulently trying to acquire Ugandan passports.
He explained that the group hired Ugandans to pretend as their relatives before the passport office but noted these were busted.
“They hired people to work as their parents and family members and come in a group. The Congolese pretended to be Ugandans who had not grown up from here but when we quizzed the hired family members, the spoke the truth. On further scrutiny, we found out that these Congolese don’t know a thing about Uganda.”
He noted that the group that pretended as the family members of the Congolese had each been paid between shs1 million and shs2 million to stand as parents.
Mundeyi said the group has been arrested and will soon be arraigned in courts of law.
“The Congolese were in possession of national ID cards that they got fraudulently. They will all be arraigned before courts of law.”
In the past, foreigners from especially from Nigeria have been trying to acquire Ugandan passports to use them in their business of drug trafficking, to countries like China where their countries’ passports were blacklisted.