Interior Cabinet Secretary Kithure Kindiki has vowed to crack down and clean up the Nyayo House, the headquarters of immigration department.
Kindiki made the remarks while appearing before the House Committee on Regional Integration where he singled out corrupt officials for impeding reforms.
“We have officers there who take bribes while they are supposed to give Kenyans free services,” he said.
“I will clean up Nyayo House once and for all. We will seal off Nyayo House and name it a scene of crime,” he stated.
He added some of Kenya’s ongoing problems, such as insecurity and terrorism, can be traced back to corruption at Nyayo House.
“If you go to Wajir, 21 year olds are waiting for IDs for three years now,” he added.
According to the CS, the passport backlog currently stands at 58,000, with the Department of Immigration and Citizen Services processing approximately 5,000 passports daily.
Kindiki’s renewed promise to take out cartels at Nyayo House follows a similar commitment on May 31 which appears to have yielded little success.
The Cabinet Secretary had promised at the time to clear 42,000 pending applications by June 30 being twenty-one days after fixing a broken printer at the time.