Nairobi — All 724,000 passports that were part of the historical backlog have been printed, Interior Cabinet Secretary Kithure Kindiki has said.

The passports had accumulated between June 2021 and March 2024.

CS Kindiki said Monday that 684,500 passports have already been collected by their owners.

"It took a bit of time to get exchequer funding, pay pending supplier debts, dismantle the corruption cartels, and acquire and install modern, high capacity printing equipment," he said.

Kindiki made the announcement after he held a service delivery efficiency review meeting and inspected passport production at Nyayo House,

The Interior CS stated that efforts were underway to fastrack the collection of 39,500 ready but uncollected passports from the backlog lot.

He added that the government is working towards sustaining the production and delivery systems to and create system efficiency in the archival, record management, registry and Information Technology management.

Kindiki stated that going forward, all new applicants will receive their passports within 21 days from the date of application, while urgent cases will be processed immediately.

"Effective August 1, 2024, the waiting period will be reduced to 7 days and further to 3 days effective November 1, 2024," he stated.