By Charles Katabalwa
30th March 2023
The Ministry of Internal affairs has announced the official upgrade of the East African Community e-Passport from paper based to Polycarbonate.
This was during a press conference on Thursday at the Uganda Media Center in Kampala by the Director of Citizenship and Immigration Control (DCIC) in the Internal Affairs Ministry Major General Apollo Kasita Gowa.
Maj. Gen. Kasita said that this is aimed at ensuring enhanced security features; durability as well as conforming to the standard requirements is recommended by the East African Community (EAC) and the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).
Kasita adds the new materials come with better quality, easy data verification at various airports of ICAO member states, better data protection and minimal chances of damage.
He has however disclosed that both passports; e-paper based and e-polycarbonate passports shall continue to be used until expiry of leaflets.
To date the ministry has so far issued over 1million e-passports since the launch in December 2018
The cost of the passports however remains unchanged at Shs250000 for Ordinary while processing an express passport attracts a fee of Shs150,000 which makes a total of Shs400,000.
Official and Diplomatic passports cost Shs400,000 and Shs500,000 respectively and take between 3-5 working days to access them.
The Directorate of Passports also emphasized that this is an upgrade but not a replacement and therefore it won’t affect the validity of the existing e-passports because they are valid till they expire.
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