These two documents are very valuable travel and identity documents. To obtain them on the premise of falsifying information or uttering false documents can land the culprits into suffering a prison sentence of not less than five years but, it appears this threat of punishment is not deterrent enough especially to the issuing officers.
Those who have obtained Ugandan passports especially the diplomatic type have used them to facilitate other crimes such as narcotics and human trafficking, smuggling, swindling very important political persons of other countries and other economic crimes.
These passports have also been used by highly connected neighbours to disguise their nationality in order to facilitate their political schemes.
This has at times soured the relationship between Uganda and her neighbours. Indeed in some cases, Uganda has been accused of sponsoring terrorism against certain countries.
This is because some of the culprits arrested while attempting to commit this crime are found with Ugandan passports. The worth of the national identity card and national passport has deteriorated to the extent of being blacklisted in some countries.
Now security and intelligence services have embarked on investigating a criminal racket that forges national identity cards and supporting letters to allow non-citizens acquire Ugandan nationality and passports.
The investigation is focused on the National Identification and Registration Authority (NIRA), which is in charge of issuing national IDs, as well as the Uganda Security Printing Company (USPC), which issues driving licences under the Uganda Driver Licensing System (UDLS) and also prints all national, security documents.
Ironically, all the people who work in these agencies are vetted and confirmed by security agencies as fit and proper persons to carry out national duties.
The problem, according to some insiders, has been that recruitment is not based on merit but on who is related to whom! Sometimes, security agencies have investigated and advised against the recruitment of some individuals for fraud and mere incompetence, but usually there is an invisible and powerful hand that prevails upon these recommendations.
With the advent of technology, government should be in position to jealously detect and protect the national documents. Uganda needs to work on its image
