The Directorate of Citizenship and Immigration Control (DCI) has destroyed 158,000 unclaimed passports valued at Shs40 billion after repeated efforts to have their owners collect them proved unsuccessful.
According to Simon Peter Mundeyi, spokesperson for the Ministry of Internal Affairs, thousands of Ugandans applied and paid for passports but never claimed them, despite multiple reminders.
“We have sent numerous messages inviting applicants to pick up their passports, yet the response has been very low. As a result, we had no choice but to destroy the uncollected documents,” Mundeyi explained.
Over 98% of the discarded passports were ordinary ones, each costing Shs250,000. The destruction was necessary due to a lack of storage space at the DCI. Mundeyi warned that if the trend continues, more passports will be discarded in the future.
“We currently have over 12,580 passports ready for collection, but their owners have yet to pick them up. If they remain unclaimed, they will also be destroyed,” he cautioned.
Most of the destroyed passports were issued between 2017 and 2020, a period when Uganda transitioned from the old black passports to the new electronic ones. Many Ugandans rushed to apply, misled by false claims that failure to do so within that timeframe would prevent them from obtaining a passport in the future.
Mundeyi also noted that an additional 12,580 newly issued electronic passports remain uncollected, creating a growing storage burden. He urged citizens to claim their passports on time to avoid further destruction.
