South Sudan's English Daily Newspaper
"We Dare where others fear"
By Awan Achiek
The Inspector General of Police Gen. Atem Marol Biar on Thursday ordered the Directorate of Nationality, Civil Registry, Passport and Immigration to start printing of the East African Community (EAC) passports.
Marol explained that the process of printing the EAC passports was supposed to have started last year but was sabotaged by some people.
“We have agreed with the company to print East African passports but it was sabotaged by some people. This time our President is the chairman of the East African Community and we should start with printing of the passports,” Marol said during the reception ceremony of Maj. Gen. Simon Majur Pabek, the new director general for the directorate of nationality, civil registry, passport and immigration in Juba.
He added that the issuance of the EAC digital passport will boost the free movement of people across the region, adding that they already have a sample of the EAC passport which only needs to be printed.
“We have samples and they need to be printed immediately. You will be given the instruction in accordance with a directive from the President to start printing of the East African passport,” Marol said.
He said that the process of printing of the EAC passports should start now since President Salva Kiir Mayardit is Chairman of the East African Community.
EA e-Passport is expected to boost the free movement of people across the region as stipulated in the EAC Common Market protocol which guarantees the right to move between countries in East Africa.
The EAC e–Passport will have Diplomatic, Service and Ordinary categories and is different from the current machine-readable passport being issued by the Partner States.
It will be valid for up to 10 years while the Diplomatic passport and service passport will be valid according to the specific terms of the service of the holder.
The EAC had initially set 31 December 2018 as the deadline for phasing out the issuance of the traditional machine-readable passports.
But, however, following the Covid-19 outbreak in 2019, EAC member states extended the deadline to January 2021.
Last year, the EAC’s six partner states including South Sudan were directed to start issuing the new East Africa machine-readable electronic passports by January but the preparedness of each member state was considered.
