Government through the National Citizenship and Immigration Control is seeking Shs46.784Bn to facilitate the Directorate to purchase more passport booklets.
The request is contained in the Shs2.386Trn supplementary budget tabled by the Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development for consideration by Parliament’s Budget Committee.
In defending the supplementary request, documents from the Ministry highlighted, “This is due to the considerable increase in demand for passports due to the high number of Ugandans seeking employment abroad and those renewing their passports.”
It should be recalled that in May 2022, the Ministry of Internal Affairs announced plans to cut down on the production of passports so as to enable a system upgrade that is aimed at curbing forgery.
According to the Directorate, the passport office has three machines, each with the capacity to produce 1000 passports daily and at the time of the upgrade, only one machine was working.
According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Government prints over 3000 passports processed from the head office in Kampala, but this is supplemented by other regional offices in Mbale, Mbarara and Gulu and mission offices in Washington, USA and London in the United Kingdom.
