The Directorate General of Immigration and Emigration has urged between 90,000 and 100,000 citizens with passports to expire in June this year, to buy East African Community electronic passports. Rwanda started to issue East African Community electronic passport in June 2019 following a directive by EAC heads of state in March 2016 to adopt the new generation passports and phase out variant documents. The new document is in compliance with the new EAC technical specifications as well as International Civil Aviation Organisation, making it admissible globally. The new passports feature enhanced security features ruling out chances of forgery and identity theft. Among the new features include a microchip, which makes it tamper-proof that will capture biometric data ensuring identification of the holder. The new security features could, among other things, increase chances of making the Rwandan passport ‘stronger’ to grant its holders access to more countries without stringent visa requirements. Jean-Damascène Rusangangwa, the Director of Citizens Services at Immigration and Emigration office told The New Times that, 100,000 citizens concerned with switching to East African Community electronic passports are all citizens who got passports between June 2016 and June 2019 before launching EAC electronic passports. Those whose passports have already expired as well as those applying for passports for the first time, also have to buy the EAC electronic passports. “Those with already expired passports are considered as people who do not have passports and therefore we do not count them among those 100,000 citizens who have passports but have only to switch to EAC electronic passports before expiring in June,” he explained. Application of the new document is carried out via the government service delivery portal Irembo. The fee levied upon applicants is dependent on the category. The categories include ordinary passport for minors valid for two years (Rwf25,000), ordinary 5-year passport with 50 pages (Rwf75,000), ordinary 10-year passport with 66 pages (Rwf100,000), service passport with 5-year validity (Rwf15,000) and diplomatic passport (Rwf50,000). Rwandans in the diaspora applying or renewing their travel documents can do so through their respective embassies using an amount of fee equivalent to Rwandan franc required to get a passport. East African Community electronic passports are expected to boost faster border clearance as well as part of a wider regional strategy to enhance integration. In January 2021, Rwanda became the 75th country to join the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) Public Key Directory (PKD), a move that is expected to drive faster the implementation of the country’s electronic passport project.
