The immigrations directorate in the Internal Affairs ministry is stuck with 1,504 passports of people who were quarantined during last year's Covid-19 lockdown.
Jacob Siminyu, the Internal Affairs ministry spokesperson, says the passports were confiscated during lockdown since it was one of the ways to keep track of people returning to the country.
Siminyu says that the immigrations directorate kept more than 3,000 passports of returnees, but half of them claimed their travel documents whereas the other half hasn't bothered. The directorate said it has tried to contact the owners to pick their passports in vain.
"Most of these passports are still valid and are elec{jcomments on}tronic. We ask people to come and pick their passports because getting another one is not an easy task. You will need a police letter, an affidavit from the commissioner of oaths and a fine of not less than Shs 100,000," Siminyu said.
As Covid-19 cases soared across the globe, the World Health Organization (WHO) advised countries to imposed a lockdown as one of the ways to curtail the spread of the pandemic. Uganda went into lockdown on March 18 and all those that returned before the government lifted the lockdown were subjected to mandatory quarantine for 14 days.
However, a number of people especially those that found the conditions in quarantine centres intolerable escaped despite the presence of both uniformed and ununiformed police and military personnel. Siminyu could not verify whether the 1,504 passports belong to people who escaped from quarantine centres.
According to Siminyu, they will keep reminding owners of the passports to pick them. In a related development, the Internal Affairs ministry has announced plans to use security personnel to chase people congesting their headquarters along Old Port Bell road.
"There is no reason, why you should come at 7 am when your appointment is at 3 pm. We are warning labour export companies to stop bringing people very early in the morning. You cannot keep someone standing for more than 5 hours," Siminyu said.
A number of women told URN that they had been dumped at the offices by a taxi hired by their labour exporting agency as early as 8 am. Some said they had arrived at the ministry at 5 am from Namayingo, Jinja and Mayuge districts.
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