KAIRU: How passport application nightmare shattered my jobs dream abroad

The rise for number of passports seekers has been fueled by the president's speech during his retreat with the Executive top brass when  President William Ruto said that the government had secured job opportunities for Kenyans in the foreign countries he has been visiting. He also said that the govt is finalizing a bilateral framework to secure 250,000 jobs in Germany. This has led to many Kenyans willing to grab this opportunity to secure themselves a job.

The dream of many Kenyans working abroad has been shuttered due to the passport crisis which has been an issue in the country over the past years and many Kenyans lost hope with the process of applying passport . 

Government spokesman, Isaac Mwaura, communicated to Kenyans giving them hope that the passport crisis which has been going on in the country  is soon coming to an end. He spoke after the recent chaos erupted at the Immigration office as angry Kenyans protested the delay in processing passports. Some Kenyans were saying that they have been waiting for their passports for over a year now. 

The government blames the delay of the issuance of passports on the breakdown of some printing machines. This maybe one of the reasons for the delay while there are many other challenges that passport seekers are going through which are not being addressed. 

For example, the long queues at the Nyayo House for the passport seekers going to collect and also apply for their passports in Nairobi. In the recent incident of Kenyans going to collect their passports after the government advised those in need of the travel document to consider getting the 50 page booklets,  which are in plenty at the Immigration Department. This photo clearly showed the many people whose passports have been delayed in processing and the slow services that are being delivered at Nyayo House. 

My friends and I were among the passport seekers who had gone to collect our passports after waiting for their issuance for almost a year. We spent the whole day, from 4am in the morning to 4pm, waiting to be attended by the lazy and slow officials in the Immigration office. 

These officials were very rude and harsh in delivering their services. They did not have good customer care services. To our disappointment we ended up going home without being getting any services since the process was slow and had no progress. It was a day wasted for us because we had wasted our time and our transport fees. We travelled all the way from Meru to Nairobi with expectations that this was going to be our last journey in search for the passport. This has made us lose our job opportunities that had been the main reason for us to apply for this passports whose deadline  was  two weeks ago.

Increase in passport fee is another issue. This has been a major issue in blocking many Kenyans from applying for passports. This has affected many Kenyans since even the initial fee, which was KSh4,550 for the 34 page passport was also a high cost for them. This is mostly preferred by the non-frequent travellers.

The 50 and 66 pages passport which cost KSh6,050 and KSh7,500 for the frequent travellers including the politicians has also been a high cost for some Kenyans.

The desperate applicants of the few page document are being forced to top up KSh1,550 to the initial amount meaning they are paying KSh50 more than those who applied for the 50-page document. This is so ironical for at the beginning, the government promised to be for the bottom people in the economy but now its even harder for them to apply for the 34-page passport. 

The government is encouraging Kenyans to go work abroad while it is increasing the passport fee. How will this even be possible to go while they cannot even afford a 34-page passport?

A lot of bribing has been going on over the past years in the passport subsector. During the passport application process, there are always some men and women standing along the queues who usually approach the passport applicants and tries to convince them to give them some amount of money and their details  and they will speed up  passports to be processed faster. 

These men and women are usually brokers of passports and con men and con women.They claim to be some of the officials of the passport sector. In my last visit at Nyayo House to collect my passport, I happened to encounter with this lady named Lilian, who was sitting beside me. She told me of her story of her first day in applying for passport.  She said that she was approached by two well dressed men in suits who introduced themselves as among the officials in the office.  The two gentlemen asked her if she had come to apply or to collect her passport. When she said that she was applying they tried to convince her to give them her details and some certain amount of money and they will speed up her passport procession. They told her of how the passports take time before the are issued out. She said that the guys were very convincing and she almost gave in.

One of the fellow applicants was able to overhear their conversation and that's when he called her out. He said that he had also been conned by some other two women in his first day of applying passport, the same way those two men were trying to con her. Many Kenyans are conned since they have been going to these offices without getting any help or services and hence one decides to use the shorter way to get a passport which is bribing and they end up being conned. 

In conclusion, the government should really check up the sector of applying for passporyt in the country and try to make it easier for Kenyans who want to apply passports to go and secure jobs for themselves in abroad. This should be one of the major issues that the government should be dealing with right now.