The Ministry of Interior has today announced that it has extended the deadline for the use of the old Kenyan passport to March 1, 2021. This happens to be the second time that the deadline has been postponed with the first deadline being August 2019.
This time around, the government has given the reason for the postponement as being the fact that about 1.8 Million Kenyans who are mostly in the diaspora are yet to replace their old passports with the EAC biometric e-passport. Those who are yet to replace their passports have been urged to do so at the earliest possible opportunity to avoid the last-minute rush.
The immigration centres that are currently processing the new Kenyan passports in Kenya are in Nairobi, Mombasa, Kisumu, Nakuru, Kisii, Eldoret, and Embu. The passports are also being issued at the Kenyan embassy in Washington DC, in Berlin, Paris, London, Johannesburg and Dubai. The government has stated that they intend to achieve same day issuance of passports by July, 2020.
The Kenyan passport has new features which includes;
- Electronic chip holding the same information as the old model passport
- Biometric identifier
- Digital photograph of the passport holder
- Security features to prevent unauthorized use and forgery.
- Details of the ePassport will be registered with the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).