Residents of Garissa and surrounding counties can breathe a sigh of relief after President William Ruto on Thursday February 6th presided over the reopening of Garissa immigration offices 10 years after closing its operations.
The offices were shut in 2014 following a wave of terror attacks in the region and parts of the country. The state of insecurity tipped Maj-Gen (Rtd) Gordon Kihalangwa, the former immigration boss, to order the closure. The abrupt closure affected at least 400 pilgrims from the region who were to fly to Mecca, Saudi Arabia and 300 soldiers from Kenya and Sierra Leone who were to be deployed to Somalia then.
While presiding over the the official launch event, the President said the station was in line with the policy of ensuring all citizens have equal access to government services.
He said the opening of the office was also a fulfillment of his administration’s electoral pledge to restore passport printing services after they were stopped in 2014.
On his part, Immigration & Citizen Services PS Julius Bitok said the reopening of the Garissa office and the elimination of vetting for national ID card applicants for residents of border counties will promote fairness and equality in access to identity and registration documents.
He said with the stoppage of vetting; the Garissa Immigration office was expected to witness a high demand for passport applications.
Besides Garissa County, the new Immigration office will offer convenience to Mandera, Wajir, and parts of Tana River, Lamu, Kitui, and Isiolo counties, saving applicants expenses in transport and time currently spent accessing services in Nairobi and other regional offices.
Garissa becomes the 10th passport application center in Kenya and the third to be opened by President Ruto after Kericho and Bungoma. The others are Nairobi, Mombasa, Kisumu, Nakuru, Embu, Eldoret, and Kisii.
