By David Lumu
The Directorate of Immigration and Citizenship Control (DCIC) has launched e-passport services in Canada.
According to officials from the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Canada e-passport centre will serve the diaspora at the Uganda High Commission in Ottawa, Canada.
“The Government of Uganda on Tuesday, August 16, launched the passport centre at the Uganda High Commission in Ottawa, Canada. The launch was presided over by Ambassador Joy Ruth Aceng,” immigration officials said in a statement.
This is the fifth e-passport centre to serve the diaspora.
“Previously opened passport centres are in London, Washington DC, Abu Dhabi and Pretoria,” immigration officials said, noting that e-passport services at Copenhagen in Denmark and Beijing in China will also be opened in the coming months as the Government ensures it brings passport services to all Ugandans in the diaspora.
The chairperson of the immigration board, Beatrice Lagada and the commissioner citizenship and passport control, Brig. Johnson Namaya, also attended the launch in Canada.
To apply for a passport, one must visit the portal www.passports.go.ug. Thereafter, the applicant is required to pay the requisite fees, schedule an appointment, appear in person at the embassy on the appointed day and have their biometric details captured.
The applicants will then wait for notification to collect the passport.
Immigration has set passport fees as follows; ordinary passports, sh250,000, service passports sh400,000 and diplomatic passports sh500,000.
For Ugandans in the diaspora, they must pay courier fees of sh10,000.
The fine for lost passport or damaged passport is sh100,000.
Uganda started issuing the international e-passport to its citizens in December 2018.
The issuance of the old type of machine-readable passports was phased out following a notification of a 2-year transition period.
The deadline to acquire new passports was first fixed on January 31, 2022. However, due to COVID-19-related lockdowns and challenges, the deadline for phasing out old passports was extended to April, 7 2022.
