The government says it will destroy more than 50,000 uncollected passports worth Shs12.5 billion in a bid to create more storage space.
The Directorate of Citizenship and Immigration Control said most of the collected passports belong to maids who were seeking employment in the Middle East.
Simon Mundeyi, the Internal Affairs ministry’s spokesperson, said some of these passports have remained unclaimed for longer than six years.
He said their predicament has been worsened by an additional 2,000 unclaimed passports applied for between January to April this year.
He said they now have about 50,000 passports in their stores across the country, which have not been claimed by the owners.
Uganda issues three types of passports, namely ordinary, official, and diplomatic, with light blue for ordinary, green for official, and red for diplomatic passports.
However, the Directorate could not readily categorise the uncollected travel documents.
The Ministry said the buildup of uncollected passports is partly due to applicants not being able to receive messages asking them to collect their travel documents.
In an effort to offset the logjam and streamline the processing of new applications, the ministry has asked people who applied for a passport to promptly pick them up or check with the ministry’s website to find out the status of their documents.
DIRECTORATE OF CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION CONTROL TO DESTROY AT LEAST 50000 UNCOLLECTED PASSPORTS
