Foreign nationals are hiring Ugandans to pose as their parents so as to ease their application for Ugandan passports, the Directorate of Citizenship and Immigration Control (DCIC) has said.
Simon Peter Mundeyi, spokesperson for ministry of Internal Affairs says that Ugandans are paid as low as Shs 2 million to sign off papers for anyone wishing to fraudulently hold a Ugandan passport.
Mundeyi said that several of these applicants have been arrested with national IDs attempting to beat the formal system. Many, according to him, often claim to be Baganda, Basoga or Bagisu but hardly speak any word in these dialects.
DCIC said that the failure to express themselves in the “mother tongue” has been one of the red flags for which they get arrested. Upon interrogation, they allegedly confess to having fraudulently acquired the national IDs.
“We have become tough on false identification, and foreigners have resorted to hiring parents thinking it would help them get passports. They come in groups and this is now another red flag. We interview one by one and we easily notice that these people are unrelated,” Mundeyi said.
So far, Mundeyi said some of the foreigners and their fake parents have been arrested and are currently detained at Jinja Road police station. Some of the foreigners who have been arrested are from Nigeria, Rwanda, Burundi, DRC, South Sudan, and Eritrea.
“We warn Ugandans not to be enticed [by] money to accept to be parents for people they do not know where they come from. We shall arrest you, prosecute and you’ll suffer in jail,” Mundeyi warned.
“We have also arrested 24 foreigners who came with Ugandan national IDs thinking they would acquire our passports. They forget that we have deployed people from all tribes and once you claim to be of a certain tribe, we get a person to interview you. We shall know that you’re lying,” Mundeyi said.
Source: URN