Immigration officials sound alarm over fake e-visa sites

The Directorate of Citizenship and Immigration Control at the Ministry of Internal Affairs has warned the general public about the existence of fake visa application sites which have been scamming people.

According to immigration officials, the charges levied by fake websites are much higher than the official fees.

"We want to warn our esteemed clients of the existence of scam sites which either charge our clients exorbitantly or defraud them totally. We advise all our clients to desist from submitting electronic applications for Ugandan Visas through any other website other than the official e-visa application portal for the Republic of Uganda www.visas.immigration.go.ug. Anyone who submits through any other site does so at his or her own risk," noted Marcellino Bwesigye, the acting director of citizenship and immigration.

Bwesigye noted that the official e-visa application portal is the only website where the issuance of all types of visas to Uganda, work permits, certificates of permanent residence, students' passes and dependants passes are done.

The official fee for ordinary/tourist visas is sh183,000 while diplomatic visas are free. The East African visa costs sh366,000, a transit visa goes for sh183,000, multiple-entry visas for 6 months and 12 months are at sh366,000 while the multiple entry visas for 24 months go for sh550,000.

Addressing journalists at the media centre on Thursday, Jacobs Siminyu, the immigration spokesperson noted that the government will not be held responsible for any inconvenience, loss (monetary) or refused entry arising from using unofficial/fraudulent sites.

Asked about the issue of holders of e-passports who are being denied entry into some countries, Siminyu said all matters were solved and people are travelling.

"People are now travelling normally without disturbances. So far, we have given out 19000 e-passports since we started at the beginning of this year. Our machine can now print 1000 e-passports a day," he noted.

Siminyu also noted that official visas take less than three working days to process, and the government does not charge any additional fees for fast-tracking visas.

In a bid to increase accountability and reduce the turnaround time, the government introduced the e-visa in 2016.