KAMPALA, UGANDA: The Ministry of Internal affairs has announced suspension of issuing express passports until further notice.
Jacob Siminyu, the Ministry spokesperson announced on Monday that the decision was reached after the number of applicants for the express passports surpassed those who follow the normal procedure of four days.
According to him, the numbers of people who apply for the express travel booklets has grown by 90% while the other applicants reduced to 10%.
He attributed the increase to labour export companies which are deliberately forcing their clients to pay for the fast option in order to minimize costs.
“They bring large numbers of people because we had a provision for people who are paying express and we imagined that they would be few and it worked, until labour export companies decided to force their clients to pay for express so that they can bring them all together to save costs. We have now put in place a number of measures which we think in the next week will reduce the population.” he said.
Recently, there has been an influx of people at the ministry headquarters caused by labour export companies who carry many of their clients to the offices at wee hours of the day when offices are not yet open.
Siminyu reminded them that government offices open at 8am and close at 5pm but the companies take their people mostly girls and drop them there at night which violates the law including the curfew law.
In order to serve the ever increasing numbers, he said that the ministry has started working up to 7pm and will start working on weekends.
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