Why immigration delayed to give Kakwenza’s children passports
Mr Simon Mundeyi, Internal Affairs ministry spokesperson. PHOTO/FILE
What you need to know:
- The Internal Affairs ministry dismissed any allegations of intentionally denying some categories of people passports as long as they prove that they are Ugandans and mentally upright.
The Immigrations department has attributed the delayed issuance of passports to three children of run-away satirical book writer Kakwenza Rukirabashaija to a slow system upgrade.
While addressing a weekly police briefing in Kampala yesterday, the spokesperson of the Internal Affairs ministry, Mr Simon Mundeyi, said the production of their passports was not operating at 100 percent.
“These children are Ugandans like any other, they did apply for passports in March, and it happened that during that time, we were doing a system upgrade. At least you (journalists) were here when I told you. We were cutting production of passports by 60 percent so we did produce very few passports in March and April,” Mr Mundeyi said.
He added: “Kakwenza passports were in that batch of the affected Ugandans, so we had a backlog, and I promised that as soon as we were done with system upgrade, I think two or three weeks ago, we started clearing this backlog.”
Mr Mundeyi dismissed any allegations of intentionally denying some categories of people passports as long as they prove that they are Ugandans and mentally upright.
“We don’t engage in politics at our passport office. We are professionals and civil servants, and therefore, do our work professionally,”Mr Mundeyi said.
“Kakwenza’s three children have their passports ready in Kyambogo. We don’t have any reason to deny any Ugandan a passport as long as they have proved to us that they are Ugandans,” he added.
Mr Mundeyi asked Mr Kakwenza’s wife to pick her children’s passports.
The announcement comes at the time when Mr Kakwenza’s lawyers led by Mr Eron Kiiza had petitioned the Uganda Human Rights Commission, accusing the Directorate of Citizenship and Immigration Control of refusing to issue passports to the children despite fulfilling the requisite requirements.
Mr Kiiza had in a one-page letter to the commission claimed that the children had paid for express passports processing and submitted all relevant information, and also attended the mandatory interviews in March but had by last week not received the travel documents.
Mr Kiiza added that despite their parents and lawyers following up on the process, the Directorate of Citizenship and Immigration Control, had refused to grant them passports and yet every Ugandan according to the Constitution is entitled to apply and be given one.
Mr Kakwenza, 33, slipped out of Uganda earlier this year after a magistrate, who has since been promoted to the rank of an acting High Court judge, denied his application to have his passport returned in order to seek proper medication following alleged torture in custody.
He is apparently taking asylum in Germany.
Mr Kakwenza is accused of using social media to insult President Museveni and his son, also the commander of the Lands Forces in the Uganda People’s Defence Forces, Lt Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba.
SATIRE: How Kakwenza fled into exile
He won the award for writing for the 2020 satirical novel The Greedy Barbarian, which describes high-level corruption in a fictional country.
He was also awarded the 2021 PEN Pinter Prize for an International Writer of Courage, which is presented annually to a writer who has been persecuted for speaking out about his beliefs.
