Passport backlog at Nyayo House to be cleared within 10 days - CS Kindiki

Addressing the press outside the Nyayo House amid the ongoing crackdown to weed out corrupt cartels and streamline the passport issuing exercise and other services, Kindiki reassured Kenyans that all cases of delay will be cleared within the said period.

He said the Nyayo House vicinity which has been on the spot over reports of corruption and exploitation of Kenyans seeking passports and other services would be cleaned up and new equipment installed to ensure seamless operations.

“We have made arrangements for more equipment. The new equipment has not arrived...As you are aware we must use the government procedures of procurement and so our hands are tied to how fast we can do some things," he said.

“The only assurance I want to give today is that the backlog will not be there in the next 10 days to 11 days. We will have cleared it and it will never accumulate again.”

Prof Kindiki also announced that as part of the reforms at Nyayo House, the Kenya Kwanza administration was working to increase the number of customer care personnel and create more facilities to accommodate special groups such as expectant mothers, lactating and or PWDs.

 “Mainly it is the management of the case log that we are working on and every day we are working better and better…in 10 to 11 days from now, we will even make other administrative changes here including the numbers of our customer care personnel but also separate facilities for expectant mothers, lactating and persons with disabilities…we feel we are not doing well in that area,” he explained.

“We will have more spacious banking halls separating applicants who are foreign nationals and Kenyan citizens .”

Last week, the CS said the passport backlog stood at 58,000, with the Department of Immigration and Citizen Services processing approximately 5,000 passports daily.

"I will clean up Nyayo house once & for all," CS Kithure told the committee,  "We will seal off Nyayo house & name it a scene of crime. How do Kenyans cue from 6 a.m.? It won’t be business as usual. We must clean up Nyayo house," Kindiki said last month.