The Directorate of Citizenship and Immigration Control (DCIC) has
revised its guidelines on replacing passports for Ugandans living in the
diaspora.
Under the new guidelines, whoever loses his or her passport must return to Uganda to have it processed and replaced.
Previously, Ugandans have been applying for passport replacement at 38 different embassies worldwide.
This implies that Ugandans residing in the diaspora will now have to
incur additional travel expenses to return to Uganda for passport
replacement.
According to Immigration, some Ugandans in the diaspora had allegedly
made it a habit of lying to immigration that their passports got lost
and would sell them to criminals.
“Ugandans losing passports must return home. The passports were being
sold to fraudsters and they were used in crime. In some of these
countries, differentiating Africans would be difficult. They would sell
them at $5,000 (Shs18m). It was easy for them to get these passports,”
Mr Simon Mundeyi, the Internal Affairs ministry spokesperson, said in an
interview with this publication yesterday.
“Working with these foreign governments, we resolved that anybody who
claims he has lost a passport must return home so that thorough
investigations are done. Many countries in Europe and Asia find it
difficult to differentiate blacks and it was becoming easy for a black
person from another country to beat the immigration system using a
Ugandan passport,” he added.
The Foreign Affairs ministry estimated that some 781,400 Ugandans
were, as of the 2020, living in other countries and most of them are
migrant workers.
Application for an ordinary passport booklet costs Shs250,000, the
service passports are at Shs400,000, while diplomatic passports cost
Shs500,000. It costs Shs400,000 to process express ordinary passports in
three days.
Mr Mundeyi said several countries have lodged complaints against Uganda.
“Ugandans in the diaspora should not expect that they would acquire
new passports or replacements at the embassies in their respective
countries of residence,” he said.
He explained that embassies can only be used for collecting a passport whose details have been captured from home.
“However, those seeking renewal for expired passports do not need to
travel back as they can be served by the embassies because they would
have presented the outdated one,” he said.
The Internal Affairs ministry has also warned foreigners against
falling for tricks of fraudsters disguising themselves as Immigration
staff.
“Fraudsters posing as Immigration officers are now targeting
foreigners. They have counterfeit Immigration IDS. They have been
designed to defraud foreigners. They hide around the abattoir and former
EC. They flag them when they come on motorcycles. They threaten and
sometimes arrest people,” Mr Mundeyi said.
The ministry has also deported 82 illegal foreigners from America,
Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania and DRC. Mr Mundeyi said the deportees had
illegally stayed in the country without bothering to renew their expired
work and resident permits.