The government has purchased two new passport printing machines which have already been delivered for installation in Nyayo House.

The two machines, according to Immigration and Citizen Services PS Julius Bitok, have a combined printing capacity of 600 passports per hour.

Speaking in Mombasa during the annual planning meeting of senior managers for agencies and directorates under the State Department, Bitok said the government will double the number of passports it targets to issue this year to at least one million while giving three million digital National IDs during the same period.

According to Bitok, the government also hopes to raise the revenue generated from its services which is collected on the eCitizen digital platform to a daily average of Ksh1 billion during the same period.

“We believe these are realistic targets based on the strategic improvements and investments that we have made to our vital personal registration and documentation systems,” the PS said.

Passports waiting time

Bitok says the installation of the new machines is expected to reduce the waiting time for issuing passports to less than 14 working days.

The PS says the government is looking to issue electronic Travel Authorisation (eTA) to over five million visitors this year.

“We will be commissioning the new printers next week. We are determined to render delays in the issuance of passports a thing of the past as we have secured the necessary resources to procure sufficient booklets and other recurrent expenses,” he added.

Bitok revealed plans by the Directorate of Immigration to open new offices in Nyeri, Bungoma and Garissa and invest in government-owned passport and border management systems to provide real-time data on the entry and exit of all travellers.

The government hopes to issue 1.2 million digital National ID cards to first-time applicants and 1.6 million duplicate IDs to build on to the 733,000 Maisha Cards it has issued so far.

The vetting of ID applicants in Northern Kenya and other border regions as a registration prerequisite will cease next month.

“Also on target is the digitisation of 46 million records on births and deaths in the country held by the Civil Registration Services and 2 million records under the custody of the National Registration Bureau.
On eCitizen, it is projected that the number of services available on the platform will grow to 20,000 from the current 16,000 pushing the total number of average daily users to above one million,” the department added in a statement.