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The Commission of Administrative Justice (CAJ), also known as the Ombudsman, has laid bare the rot at the Immigration Services, particularly in issuance of passports.

Because of the situation, the Ombudsman told the Senate National Security and Defence committee that the Principal Secretary State Department of Immigration and Citizen Services should audit the National Database Registration Authority system for the period of 2021-2023 in order to identify all passport applicants whose excess payments had not been refunded.

The commission undertook an investigation into allegations that the Department of Immigration was overcharging citizens for passports.

The Ombudsman noted numerous complaints from members of the public on social media against the Department of Immigration and the e-citizen platform alleging that they had been issued passports that have fewer pages than the ones they had paid for.

“The allegations investigated amounts to forms of maladministration, manifest injustice, ineffectiveness, and discourtesy by the Department of Immigration,” the report reads in part.

According to commission, some citizens alleged that they were compelled to pay Sh6,050 for a ‘B’ series passport (50 pages) while making their online applications only for them to be issued with ‘A’ series passports (34-pages) whose cost is Sh4,550, thereby losing Sh1,500 to the government without a clear channel of recourse.

When he appeared before the committee yesterday, CAJ vice chair Washington Sati said the Immigration Department does not have an internal policy or a procedure guiding and regulating issues that may arise out of passport processing such as editing and cancellation of applications, thereby giving immigration officials the leeway to resolve such issues arbitrarily.

“Investigations established that the Department of Immigration has no mechanism for automatically refunding excess payment occasioned by the issuance of passports with fewer pages than that applied for. The refunds for the complainants are likely to delay since the Department of Immigration relies on funds released by the National Treasury to utilize the refund vote for processing such refunds,” said CAJ vice chair Washington Sati.