Gov't Bars Public Servants without e-Passports from Traveling Abroad
The government has issued an order barring State officers and civil servants without e-Passports from traveling abroad.
The move has been announced by the head of Public Service Joseph Kinyua in a circular dated April 14th.
“Considering that the machine-readable passport will cease to be a valid travel document with effect from September 1, 2019, any machine-readable passport is already outside the six months validity period,” reads a circular by Kinyua.
Last October, Kinyua directed all public servants to acquire the new generation travel documents by February 28th, 2019.
“To avoid inconveniences that may be occasioned on account of the limited validity period of the machine-readable passports and in observance of the above-mentioned circular, travel clearance should not be issued to officers who do not hold the e-passport,” Kinyua's circular adds.
The deadline for acquisition of the digital passports is set for September 1st this year but the government has indicated it may extend it to 2020.
Addressing Kenyans in Italy last December, Deputy President William Ruto said only 400,000 out of the 2.5 million passport holders in Kenya had acquired the new generation travel document.
Comments (3)
This Kinyua need some serious canning na mangumi pia! Why is Kenyan govt abusing it's citizens. So far the people who applied for the new e-passports last yr have not received their passports. So whose problem is it? Washindwe.
Does this mean that the Old passport is still valid for other Kenyans, apart from Civil servants? How will the machines at the Airport differentiate between passports of Public servants, from all the rest, given that they have to follow International Law and Protocols, which Kinyua and the Government seem ignorant of? The deadline will keep shifting forward... This whole thing will eventually be done away with, after consuming billions of shillings, when the Government realizes that it is unimplementable. Then they will quietly do what they actually have the power to do... To issue those with expired Passports, and those applying for the first time, with an E-passport.
First things first. Be able to feed the hungry citizens first. This government priorities are misplaced. We are in 2019, getting all this new technologies, but some of our citizens cannot afford a single decent meal a day.
Kenya needs new leadership and new thinking. Let this government afford one decent meal a day for every child. Let every village have water flowing in their taps before forcing them to have "Huduma" useless numbers. (Before selling Kenyan citizen's to foreign corporations to be controlled-under modern day "Kipande System "