CS wants special needs centres set up at Immigration

Interior Cabinet Secretary Kithure Kindiki has directed the Directorate of Immigration to set up special centres for special needs persons who require passports.

Kindiki said expectant mothers, lactating mothers and parents or guardians accompanied by toddlers as well the elderly and persons with disabilities should be given special consideration when applying for the document.

The CS, who made a dawn visit to the Civil Registry Services offices in Upper Hill, Nairobi to get a first-hand experience of persons seeking birth and death certificates, also directed the Directorate, headed by John Mwangemi to fast-track issuance of the documents and improve customer experience.

“I made a mid-morning surprise visit at the offices of the Directorate of Civil Registration Services (CRS) to assess the efficiency of the registration of births and deaths and to get first-hand feedback on the experiences of members of the public who seek these critical Government services,” he said.

Kindiki’s visit to the centre is part of the impromptu tours he has been making at the immigration department in his efforts to clean up the centre and fast-track the issuance of passports.

Earlier, he held a meeting with senior Immigration Department officials, led by Principal Secretary, State Department of Immigration and Citizen Services Julius Bitok and Director General of Immigration Evelyn Cheluget where he insisted that the momentum for radical changes to create efficiency, eradicate corruption and clear the backlog in the processing of passports remains a primary objective and must-achieve target for the government.

He directed the department’s top brass to establish mechanisms that will facilitate a seamless delivery of processed and printed passports to the applicants and handle the issue of more than 80,000 uncollected passports.

During a visit to Nyayo House last week, Kindiki disclosed that queues at the Immigration department headquarters were now shorter, and the movement is faster as the Immigration Department had fast-tracked the processing of all outstanding passport applications.

Clear backlog

He said that the 10-day countdown to clear the historical backlog of pending 40,000 plus passport applications was on as they had deployed day and night shifts to facilitate full capacity printing of passports, procurement of modern printing equipment and recruitment of additional immigration officers.

He said: “The tremendous improvement is a result of operational reforms initiated in the last three weeks. Immigration officers are working round the clock to clear the backlog.”

Meanwhile, the CS also met with top management of the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) led by Director Mohamed Amin and assessed the process and system constraints that have led to paralysis of the production of Police Clearance Documents (Certificates of Good Conduct) over the last few months.

According to him, although the system breakdown had been resolved, they agreed on a recovery plan to return normalcy in the provision of the service.

He said: “The task remains to clear the backlog and upgrade the system from the current Automated Palm and Fingerprint Identification System to the more efficient Multi-Biometric Identification System.”

Elsewhere, the CS provincial administration officials and security officers will sign performance contracts to boost service delivery in counties.

He said the contracts will be signed by all officers from regional commissioners down to chiefs and assistant chiefs.

Kindiki spoke in Thika town when he officially opened the new Biashara Location Senior Chief’s office and commissioned construction of a new police division headquarters for Thika West.

“I have pressure to perform, hence I must put pressure on the officers so that we can efficiently serve members of the public,” Kindiki said.