Uganda introduces online passport application system to help reduce corruption tendencies and congestion at the Ministry of Internal Affairs
Uganda has launched an online passport application system that will help in curbing on the congestion at the Ministry of Internal Affairs and corruption tendencies.
“It will reduce on the processing time of the passports from seven working days which is our current standard practice to 48 hours,” the minister of state for Internal Affairs Mario Obiga Kania stated at a press conference held Yesterday on Thursday 19th.
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Minister Obiga who praised the online system initiative added that it will help greatly in curbing on the corruption tendencies including the middlemen who have been making money from particular individuals seeking for these passports.
“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, “Obiga added.
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Of recent many individuals have raised theft complaints to the ministry indicating that unknown people who tend to act as middlemen defraud them in helping them to get access to their passports.
Under the new system, passport turnover will improve from seven days to only 48 hours on average.
Besides, the system now has revised fees with ordinary Uganda passports now costing UGX 250,000, official passports will cost UGX 400,000, diplomatic passports will cost UGX 500,000 and express processing will cost an extra UGX 150,000.
The minister, however, called on all those that had already paid using the old fees to consider reapplying online again by paying the revised fee to acquire a new passport.
“I would like to remind all those who paid 150,000 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 are UGX 250,000 and seek for a refund for the earlier paid UGX 150,000 from Uganda Revenue Authority, “ Obiga added.
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With the online system set to come into effect officially next year, the minister also implied that anyone can still have access to the passport via the usual manual application.
Meanwhile, according to a statement from the Uganda Revenue Authority (URA), an organization in charge of collecting taxes in the country, verification will be done from the Ministry of Internal Affairs to confirm that the service was provided against the payment.
By John Dalton Kigozi
