The Ugandan government has announced plans to dispose of more than 50,000 unclaimed passports worth approximately Shs12.5 billion to address storage challenges, according to the Directorate of Citizenship and Immigration Control.
Mr. Simon Mundeyi, spokesperson for the Ministry of Internal Affairs, revealed that most of these passports, which have remained uncollected for over six years, primarily belong to maids who were seeking employment opportunities in the Middle East.
The situation has been exacerbated by an additional 2,000 unclaimed passports applied for between January and April of this year.
“We currently have approximately 50,000 unclaimed passports stored across the country, posing a logistical challenge due to the continuous influx of new applicants,” stated Mr. Mundeyi.
Uganda issues three types of passports—ordinary, official, and diplomatic—distinguished by light blue, green, and red covers respectively. However, the Directorate could not immediately classify the uncollected passports by type.
Mr. Mundeyi explained, “Most of these unclaimed passports were intended for girls who sought employment in the Middle East. With the reduction in labor export activities, many of them lost interest in collecting these documents and returned to their villages.”
The application fee for an ordinary passport booklet is Shs250,000, while official (service) passports are charged at Shs400,000, and diplomatic passports at Shs500,000. Express processing of an ordinary passport, completed within three days, costs Shs400,000.
“The ministry plans to destroy these uncollected passports, some of which have been sitting in storage since 2018, due to space constraints,” Mr. Mundeyi emphasized.
He added that efforts to notify applicants about the availability of their passports have often been hindered by communication challenges. “In some cases, we send messages to applicants, but their phones are switched off or out of network coverage, resulting in undeliverable notifications.”
To expedite the processing of new applications and alleviate congestion, the Ministry urges individuals who have applied for passports to promptly collect them or check their status online via the ministry’s website.
