Interior Cabinet Secretary Kithure Kindiki on Thursday ordered that only staff and Kenyans seeking services should be allowed in the premises of Nyayo House as the State responds to the cries of passport applicants.
Kindiki announced this after he made an impromptu visit to the building that houses the State Department of Immigration and Citizen Services which is responsible for processing passports.
Boda boda riders have also been banned from operating around the area, a move the ministry expects will weed off corrupt individuals taking advantage of Kenyans seeking passports.
"Henceforth, access to the Immigration Department Headquarters in Nyayo House will be restricted to members of staff and service-seekers with the necessary documents, key among them appointments for submission and biometrics capture," Kindiki ordered.
"The general public is hereby notified that security within the vicinity of the premises has been heightened, and nobody will be allowed to hang around without justifiable reason," Kindiki stated.
The CS also noted that the clean-up of operations at the facility is underway, as detectives close in on more people accused of bribery and frustrating the process.
According to the CS, detectives had identified a list of suspects some of whom had for years operated at Nyayo House with impunity.
"The CS further stated that the backlog of 44,000 applications for passports will be cleared within the next two weeks as the government works on a permanent solution to the long delays that have been witnessed in the recent past.
"The Department will receive up to Ksh1.3 billion in the FY 2023/24 to procure new equipment, including state-of-the-art printers," Kindiki stated.
Separately in Mombasa, Principal Secretary for Immigration and Citizen Services Julius Bitok revealed that the State had extended anti-fraud operations beyond Nyayo House in Nairobi.
Bikot stated that the crackdown on suspected brokers and their accomplices linked to the passports-issuance racket had moved to regional offices.
“The crackdown that is around Nyayo house will be extended to other cities and towns like Mombasa, Kisumu, Kisii and many other places where there are complaints from Kenyans that are not able to get services because they’re people who are suspected to be abetting corruption," Bitok stated.
