Ugandans hoping to travel to Denmark with the new polycarbonate e-passport will have to wait or cancel their flights as they wait for Denmark to verify their passports.
The Ministry of Internal Affairs demanded that Ugandans traveling by air to Denmark hold on for two weeks as they waited for approval from the latter.
This came in after some Ugandans were blocked from proceeding with the visa application process to Denmark.
Mr. Simon Mundeyi, the spokesperson of the Internal Affairs Ministry, said there have been claims since last week from students whose visa applications have been delayed and attributed delays to the Danish government, which is still in the process of verifying, saying that the Danish government had not taken time to verify and certify our passport in time.”
“Ugandans traveling to Denmark will have to be patient for two weeks as we finalize with the Danish authorities. Even those who had applied for visas at the Danish Embassy will have to wait for authorization from Denmark,” Mr. Mundeyi said in an interview with this publication on Tuesday.
Mr. Mundeyi said those who had managed to travel to Denmark with polycarbonate passports without any issues are at liberty to return to the country, noting that it is those traveling out of Uganda that have to wait.
In March, Uganda introduced polycarbonate e-passports, which were introduced to ease travelers’ experiences, improve document verification, and enhance travel security for citizens.
Mr. Mundeyi explained that the government had fulfilled all the standards required by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), and Ugandan passports have not been rejected anywhere.
“We wrote to ICAO, and we got certification and approval to upgrade the passport in line with the international passport, and we were also required to print sample passports to be distributed to all countries globally,” he said.
Reports from the Directorate of Citizenship and Immigration Control (DCIC) indicate that over 7,000 people have traveled abroad using the new polycarbonate passport. Out of these, 98 had to travel to Denmark.
“At the airport when we checked our records on Friday, About 98 people had actually used the passports to go to Denmark, and the Danish government rejected one of the visa applicants on account of having not verified the passport,” he said.
However, it should be noted that a similar issue happened in 2018 when the government phased out the machine-readable passport in favor of an electronic one. Mr. Mundeyi said that the Danish government is always careful when verifying passports.
“The issue is with the Danish government, which takes its time to verify, and they are not like other quick countries such as the USA and Canada,” he said.
By press time, efforts to reach the Danish Embassy for a comment were futile, as several emails and calls to the Public Relations Office were not responded to.