Yiep Joseph
Africa-Press – South-Sudan. The Directorate of Civil Registry, Nationality, Passport, and Immigration says there is a need to educate the citizens about the new generation of East African passports before issuing them to the public.
While East African countries have tiptoed into the issuance of the document to ease cross-border movement, the directorate argues that rushing the process would be counterproductive in the South Sudanese context—hence the need for sensitisation.
Addressing the media on Tuesday, the Deputy Director of ICT at the Directorate, Lt. Col. David Oromo, said the sensitisation will seek to enable the applicants to understand the usage of the document and the laws that apply.
“Our people need to know the importance of this East Africa passport, and we need to call someone from the Ministry of East Africa Affairs to come and explain to you the usage and the law that will enable one to know,” Oromo said, adding this will enable the applicants to know the benefits.
He noted that the majority of the citizens have very little knowledge about the current country’s passport and its use and introducing the East African passport would be another challenge.
“Some people come back with expired passports when they have not been used, and this is due to a lack of knowledge about the use of our passports,” Oromo stated.
However, he said the country, being part of the region, has agreed to have the passport once the citizens have been sensitised.
“These passports are there; we shall issue them out. Our leadership has agreed that we shall issue them, and they are already in our pipeline, but give us time to get the document done,” he said.
“We do not need to rush; we need to be patient. We need to do the right thing, of which we are to be proud. We are here to give services, and these services we are giving to you should not be rushed,” he said.
The official said the directorate has already cleared the company that produces passports, adding that the country will soon embark on enrolling in the East Africa passport.
“Issuing the East Africa Passport is in our plans; our plan was to enrol it (East Africa Passport) by June, but due to the delay in payment( it has reached this time),” he said.
In 2022, The Director General of the Directorate of Immigration, Passport, Nationality, and Civil Registry, Lt Gen. Atem Marol, said plans were in the advanced stages to start printing the East African Community (EAC) e-passport within the country.
Addressing the media in Juba, Marol said he and the technician were waiting for a visa to travel to Germany to design the passport booklet.
“Last week, I went to Uganda to seek a visa for Germany, and together with a technician, we are going to Germany so that we can design the booklet,” he revealed. “As soon as we come with the booklet, we will start the printing. We will start with the passport of the president, and then the rest will follow,” he told the media.
Marol, however, attributed South Sudan’s delay in embracing the EAC e-passport to the conflict and the bad economic situation in the country.
The EAC had initially set December 31, 2018, as the deadline for phasing out the issuance of the traditional machine-readable passports. However, following the COVID-19 outbreak in 2019, EAC member states extended the deadline to January 2021. This was also not met, and member states were forced to internally set their dates for citizens to embrace the new EAC e-passports. Kenya set the final deadline for the e-passport for November 30, 2022.
Source: The City Review South Sudan
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