By KT Reporter
At least 42000 unclaimed passports risk being burnt by the Directorate of Citizenship and Immigration (DCIC) at the Ministry of Internal Affairs. DCIC records show many Ugandans apply for passports, but they don’t pick them up even when they send them reminder messages.
Simon Peter Mundeyi, Ministry of Internal Affairs Spokesperson, confirmed the destruction of unclaimed passports. Mundeyi explained that much as they destroyed over 60,000 passports barely a year ago, they will soon destroy others that haven’t been claimed.
Over 97% of the unclaimed passports are ordinary ones which cost 250,000 shillings each. This means DCIC burnt passports worth 1.55 billion shillings barely a year ago, and others worth 10.5 billion shillings will soon also be set on fire.
“We call for applicants to pick these passports. We now have more than 42,000 unclaimed passports. These passports have continued to pile even after we destroyed 62,000. We appeal to Ugandans to come and pick their passports,” Mundeyi said.
Many Ugandans apply for passports after being promised jobs abroad by genuine and quark recruitment agencies. The genuine recruitment agencies suffered a blow a year ago, when Saudi Arabian authorities first suspended the recruitment of external workers to streamline the process and reduce cases of human trafficking.
Other external recruiters lost job deals during Covid-19 lockdowns that brought business to a standstill. The two scenarios made many Ugandans who had applied for passports abandon them at DCIC because of lost hope.
Additionally, quark and fraudulent external recruiters have left many Ugandans disappointed after defrauding them of huge amounts of money with lucrative job promises in Israel, Ukraine, UK, Canada and the US.
A few days ago, it emerged that Christian Asiimwe aka Don Chris duped 350 Ugandans more than 1.4 billion shillings with job promises in Canada, UK, US and other countries. Asiimwe operated a quark recruitment company known as Skypins.
Patrick Onyango, the Kampala Metropolitan Police Spokesperson and Mundeyi said a hunt for Asiimwe is on. However, DCI has since established that he fled the country in June using the Busia border.
Also, Jackline Mbulateire and Andrew Sekimuli duped Ugandans more than 940 million shillings with job promises in Israel. Others have been defrauded with jobs in Ukraine as well as Russia because of the ongoing wars.
After being promised lucrative jobs abroad, Ugandans rushed to apply for the passports and abandoned them once they learnt that they were hoodwinked by fraudsters.
So far, Mundeyi said almost all DCIC branches at Kyambogo, Mbale, Mbarara, Jinja, Fort Portal, Hoima, Masindi, Arua, Masaka and Lira are filled with unclaimed passports.
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