Uganda becomes first East African country to fully switch to new e-passports

Uganda is the first East African country to fully switch to the new electronic passport, beating fellow EAC members who have been deferring the implementation deadline for the new secure documents.

Ugandans who have not acquired a new generation passport can now travel out of Entebbe after the country has phased out the old document reading machines.

The decision to adopt a new generation of passports and phase out old ones was reached by the EAC heads of state in March 2016 in Arusha, Tanzania.

Kenya has pushed the deadline for acquiring new generation passports to November after it missed an earlier one that had been set for December last year.

EAC Secretary General Peter Mathuki has urged members of the state that have not implemented the e-passport requirement to fast-track the implementation.

In a virtual news conference, Mr Mathuki said that they were encouraging all member states to adopt the new passport in line with the EAC directive.

The phase-out of Rwandan passports was pushed from June 27, 2021 to June 27, 2022, according to a communique issued by the Rwanda Directorate General of Immigration and Emigration.

Kenya rolled out new chip-embedded passports for its citizens in a move that targets rampant forgery and impersonation of holders. The new features are intended to make it impossible for anyone to duplicate a Kenyan passport.

The roll-out of the e-passports with a 10 year validity period marked the beginning of the end of the older passports that have been in use since Independence and have joined 60 other countries that use new passports.