The Government is moving to phase out the current type of Uganda passports by the end of January 2021 as preparations start to introduce electronic passports.
The government's spokesperson Ofwono Opondo said Cabinet on Monday approved the switch to e-passports during its sitting at State House in Entebbe.
He said the transition to e-passports was in line with a January 15, 2021 deadline set by the six East African countries to phase in the machine-readable passports.
Issuance of the e-passports will start on January 15, next year. Although similar to the existing passport, an e-passport contains a small contactless integrated circuit (computer chip) embedded on the biodata page. Kenya and Burundi are among the three countries in East Africa that are already using e-passports.
The internal affairs ministry’s permanent secretary stated that the first batch of the e-passports arrived on Monday and testing of the new type of passports will start next week. “Unless one has an urgent trip, they do not have to renew the old passports now. They can wait until January 15 and apply for the electronic passports,” Ofwono advised.
An ordinary electronic passport will cost sh250,000, an official passport (held by government officials) will cost sh400,000 and a diplomatic electronic passport will cost sh500,000.
Currently, an ordinary passport costs sh150,000 while official and diplomatic passports cost sh200,000 and sh400,000, respectively.
A person seeking to get any of the three types of electronic passports in less than the standard two weeks processing period will have to pay sh500,000.
Today, an express passport costs sh300,000. Although the e-passport will remain the standard travel document, Ugandans with national IDs will still be able to travel within the East African region using their IDs.
Features on the visa pages on the e-passports bear sharp, eye-catching symbols that represent Uganda, including the mountain gorilla, silverback, crested crane, independence monument, Murchison Falls and a fisherman.
Michael Ssebina, an immigration officer in charge of ICT who was part of the team that designed the new passport, said the features make the document fraud-proof. “The biometric data stored on the chip guarantees the authenticity of the document. The chip is invisible to the eye and you cannot change what is contained on it,” he explained.
The diplomatic passport retains its red color, but the official passport has been renamed service passport and it’s green in colour whereas a regular e-passport is navy blue in colour.
The passport is branded with the words East African Community above that of Uganda. Part of the profile information is in English, Kiswahili, and French.
Part of the transition to e-passports will involve integrating the National Identification Registration Authority (NIRA) database with that of the Ministry of Internal Affairs to ease processing of passports. This means that anyone seeking a passport will not be required to go through the current tedious process which involves filling in multiple forms and seeking referrals from several authorities.
Instead, applicants will apply for e-passports online and later visit immigration centers to have their details verified against data from the NIRA database. The new system will replace the traditional procedure, where an applicant is required to fill in two bio-data forms and have them endorsed by three area local council chairpersons and two security personnel.
The process to shift to e-passports has not been without controversy. Early this month, three top internal affairs ministry officials were interdicted over endorsing a sh2.3billion deal signed with a UK firm (Delarue) in July to supply 54,000 passport books.
The officials are acting head of Directorate of Citizenship and Immigration Control, Josephine Ekwang Ali, the Commissioner for Passport and Citizenship, Nicholas Ongodia and the Principal Immigration Officer, Jabel Male. They reportedly stated that the ministry was running low on passport books and that the 54,000 copies were needed between November 2018 and January 2019, when the planned migration to e-passports is expected to start.
Upon getting wind of the deal to procure fresh passport books, the internal affairs minister, General Jeje Odongo in a November memo directed the ministry’s permanent secretary, Benon Mutambi, to take disciplinary action against the three officials. The minister said action should be taken against the officials over supervising the process of procuring the passports.