Launch of the East African Community e-passport

The New Generation e-East African Passport that had been schedule for launch last year November will be launched early this year.

Citizens of The East African Community (EAC) which is made up of Kenya, Tanzania Uganda, Burundi and Rwanda, will now be in a position to move across the five countries freely as long as they have the e-passport.

The launch was delayed due to some advancements and changes that were being done to enhance efficiency when the passport starts working.

Last year, the EAC’s Chair of the Council of Ministers Mr. Abdallah Sadaala Abdallah stated that enhancement of capacity of the Immigration Directorates and departments was a matter of urgency so as to advance cohesive e-migration management systems and also come up with heightened e-immigration services to EAC citizens. He said his during the East African Legislative Assembly (EALA) budget presentation.

National security being a key measure, Mr. Abdallah added that biometric technology through adoption of an advanced technology. He said that this measures will help in improving all the processes in place and also securing the e-migration network.

After e-passport becomes operational, all Kenyans applying for passports and those whose passports have expired will be issued with the new generation passports. Sh.5,096,364 ($49,840) were approved and set aside by the National Assembly for the purposes of assessing the needs and preparedness for the implementation of the new generation e-passports.

The Kenyan passport currently is made up of 32 pages, expires after 10 years and goes for Sh.4,500 ($450), while the Ugandan one has got 46 pages, expires after ten years and goes for Sh.400 ($40)

The e-passport is made up of an electronic chip that contains the holders name, date of birth, passport number and the occupation of the holder.

It also contains a biometric identifier, a digital photograph of the holder and security features that will be used to prevent unauthorized reading or scanning, thus helping to reduce forgery cases.

The e-passport will help in improving trade across the East African Community and Africa as a whole. This will make economies of the countries involved to experience growth.

Despite the many challenges that have been there since the proposal of the e-passport, a lot of efforts have been put to see the whole process reach where it is currently.

Plans are underway to create and promote intra African Trade to enable Africa invest more in the regional integration, share industrialization and create value chains across African countries and regions.

Article by Vera Shawiza.