Relief to surface on Ugandans in the diaspora as the government from Kampala plans to establish several passport issuance centers across the world. These centers have come after Kampala had already set up a passport issuance center in the United Kingdom.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has resolved to establish more centers to ease the renewal of documents particularly traveling documents (passport).
Next, the Kampala government is planning before the end of March 2022 to open another passport issuance center at the mission in Washington DC. Confirmed during the press address on Monday by the spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affair, Mr. Jacob Siminyu.
There is a number of Ugandan citizens who are spread across working, studying, and living in the US and these will be ably served by the new passport issuance center in the states.
Ugandans abroad have had the challenge of renewing their traveling documents and some have been using friends and relatives in East Africa to aid in renewing their documents in Kampala.
And the process also involved the virtual interviews scheduling with the passport office before the passport are issued and sent abroad via courier companies which seemed so costly.
The opening of new passport issuance centers means convenience on top of saving money and time for Ugandans. The time taken to issue the documents will have to reduce from one month to two weeks, said Siminyu.
Siminyu said, “We expect all our citizens around that area to submit their application for a passport, go for the interview, an application processed and still get their passport from there”.
The issuance centers will be set at various Ugandans embassies and missions which are spread across respectively.
The ministry in recent years shifted passport application from manual to an online form which is possibly enabling the process.
The ministry establishing these centers has based on analysis of where centers where there is a sizeable number of Ugandans
The Ministry of Internal Affairs as well revealed how they are to establish various passport issuance centers across the continent at different Uganda missions among which include Ottawa (Canada) to cater for Ugandans in North America, Copenhagen (Denmark) serving Ugandans in the Scandinavian countries, and Adu Dhabi United Arab Emirates serving Ugandans in the Middle East and the Pretoria in South Africa.
