The government of Uganda has announced its intention to destroy more than 50,000 uncollected passports, valued at Shs12.5 billion, in order to free up storage space. The Directorate of Citizenship and Immigration Control revealed that a significant portion of these unclaimed passports belong to individuals who were seeking employment as domestic workers in the Middle East.
Mr. Simon Mundeyi, the spokesperson for the Ministry of Internal Affairs, disclosed that many of these passports have been left unclaimed for more than six years. Additionally, the situation has been exacerbated by the addition of 2,000 uncollected passports applied for between January and April of the current year. The accumulation of uncollected passports poses a logistical challenge for storage facilities across the country, according to Mundeyi.
Uganda issues three types of passports: ordinary, official, and diplomatic. While the ordinary passport is light blue, the official is green, and the diplomatic is red. However, the Directorate has not been able to categorize the unclaimed passports according to their types.
Mundeyi explained that the majority of these uncollected passports were intended for individuals, particularly women, seeking employment opportunities in the Middle East. With a significant number of labor export activities reducing, many of these individuals lost interest in collecting their passports as they returned to their villages.
The Ministry charges Shs250,000 for processing an ordinary passport booklet, Shs400,000 for an official passport, and Shs500,000 for a diplomatic passport. Additionally, an express ordinary passport can be processed within three days for a fee of Shs400,000.
Most of the maids seeking employment in the Middle East pay Shs250,000 for an ordinary passport. Considering that the bulk of the 50,000 unclaimed passports are likely those of maids, the total value would amount to nearly Shs12.5 billion. However, some applicants opt for express processing, which incurs additional costs.
The Ministry is now planning to dispose of these passports, as they have been left unclaimed since 2018. The buildup of uncollected passports is partly attributed to applicants failing to receive notifications to collect their travel documents. In an effort to address this issue, the Ministry urges applicants to promptly collect their passports or check the status of their documents on the Ministry’s website.
