A couple of months ago, we told you about the new East African passport designed to ease your movement in and around the region. While the passport is a Gateway solution throughout all the region into Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, and Burundi; it is destined to become the official certification for one to travel out of Uganda.
Government stated that, following an East African Community (EAC) directive by Heads of State, the passports would begin to roll out on 20 January 2019, with the old passports to be phased out over a period of two years and eventually become invalid after 9 January 2021.
To date, Kenya and Tanzania are already using the new generation EAC passport while the other states are at different stages of implementation, including Uganda that is still at the issuing stage since January 2019.
Where is the problem?
Those that have successfully secured the new East African passport are likely to be denied visas. This is because numerous countries say the passport has not yet been approved, and this has cost many visa applications – the most recent being from the Embassy of Denmark in Nairobi.
The Consular Officer, Annie Ostman notified a visa applicant that the new passport features are yet to be incorporated in the foreign immigration systems.
“The DanishEmbassy has received your visa application. You have applied using the newUgandan East African Community passport that was launched in December 2018. Unfortunately,this passport is not yet approved by Danish Authorities.”
Ms. Annie informed the applicant that that the embassy will keep the application open in their visa system for 15 days.
“Would you like to keep it open until then, and if we have not received an approval in that time, then we withdraw the application? Kindly let us know, if you wish to do that or withdraw the application now.”
She added that they will “inform VFS in Kampala not (to) accept applications with the new passport for the time being.”
Government Standpoint
Uganda’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has issued a statement in clarification of the incident. In the statement, citizens have been asked to be patient “as the immigration authorities of the Foreign Governments update their systems.”
“The Embassy of Denmark, like all other Diplomatic and Consular Missions and International Organizations accredited to Uganda, were informed and issued samples of the new passports in December 2018.
According to the Danish Embassy in Kampala, the Samples were forwarded to the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs in January 2019. The process of entering the new Ugandan East African Community Passports into their system is ongoing, and shall be concluded soon.”
