By Spy Uganda
Kampala: Uganda Airlines has announced that all passengers flying out of Uganda are now required to use the new e-passport with immediate effect-TheSpy Uganda reports.
The Airline says the above effect doesn’t apply to returnees, saying that those can come back with their old machine-readable passports.
”All citizens traveling outside the country and to all our destinations will be required to travel using the new e-passport effectively immediately, however, citizens coming back home are allowed to return with the machine-readable passport,” announced the Airline.
#traveltips pic.twitter.com/m7fgBPSOUh
— Uganda Airlines (@UG_Airlines) April 5, 2022
The Directorate of Citizenship and Immigration Control earlier this month announced that no Ugandan will be allowed to leave the country if they don’t have an electronic passport.
According to the Directorate, the use of machine-readable passports stopped on April 4.
The six partner states of the East African Community in 2018 set a deadline of Jan. 15, 2021, to phase out traditional passports, but this had to be extended due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The resolution to introduce EAC ePassports was reached during the 17th Ordinary Summit of EAC Heads of State held in March 2016, with an eye on streamlining data access.
The first batch of ePassports was brought into the country in December of 2018.
