Kenya has extended the deadline for phasing out the old-generation passport to November 2022.
Director-General of Immigration Services Alexander Muteshi announced the extension through a press release on Friday.
Muteshi says the decision was arrived at during the 41st Ordinary Meeting of the East African Community (EAC) Council of Ministers held in Arusha, Tanzania in November last year.
“Since Kenya as a member state is bound by the Council’s decisions, we will abide by this directive for now,” Muteshi said in the statement.
The government had previously set December 31st, 2021 as the deadline for migration to the second-generation e-passport.
Kenya has been in the process of phasing out the old dark blue passports as part of the binding commitment made to migrate to the new East African Community biometric e-passport.
Once the deadline elapses, the old dark blue passport will be null and void and no Kenyans will be able to travel internationally without a valid EAC biometric e-passport which is sky blue in color.
The e-passport has an electronic chip holding the same information as the old model passport, a biometric identifier, a digital photograph of the passport holder, and security features to prevent unauthorized use and forgery. Details of the e-passport will be registered with the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).
I said here before, that…
I said here before, that Kenya should not insist on running, before it has learnt how to crawl. When Matiang’i announced a few years back that old Passports would no longer be valid for Kenyans, the assumption, which is wrong, is that all travellers in Kenya’s Airports, are Kenyans. Other Countries, including the US, do not have this requirement. Since every Traveller has to have a Passport issued by the Country in which they are a Citizen, what justification would the GoK use to deny Kenyans from traveling using this Passport, while allowing non Kenyans, who they have no power to deny the same, using the same Passport?
When renewing an existing…
When renewing an existing passport, why do we need to show our birth certificate? Some of us who were home births don’t even have a clue the date we were born
The idea is to rule out…
The idea is to rule out number of dishonest individuals who cannot trace family tree. You need to prove with you vaccinations record. Do you have ID?