More migrants in the country, new report says

Officials at the Ministry of Internal Affairs register immigrants who were found operating illegally in Kampala recently. R eports indicate that many foreigners in Uganda operate businesses without work permits.

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The number of non-residents who arrive and remain in the country has continued to rise over the last five years, official records have revealed.

The statistics, which are included in the Uganda Bureau of Statistics 2012 Statistical Abstract, indicate that non-resident departures in the last half decade have fallen consistently lower than the non-resident arrivals.

Out of 1.5 million arrivals in 2011 for example, 1.2 million were non-residents.

And out of 1.4 million recorded departures, one million were non-residents. This would suggest that at least 200,000 non-residents did not depart the country, meaning that the number of such individuals has grown by 144,000 people. In 2010, only 86,000 non-residents failed to leave the country.

The report does not particularly describe the individuals as illegal aliens, but the reported growth in numbers could partly explain recent intensification of efforts by the Immigration Department under the Internal Affairs ministry to clamp down on undocumented foreigners.

At the weekend, Ministry of Internal Affairs spokesperson Eunice Kisembo said since she was not sure the statistics are credible, she was not in position to comment at length, even though Ubos relied on data from the ministry when compiling the abstract.

“How do they verify that the people who departed are not or were among those who arrived? There remain lots of unanswered questions,” Ms Kisembo said.

She, however, could not explain what those that stay here do, saying: “I cannot give any more comments because I have not looked at that report.”

This report, however, notes that, “This section presents a summary of migration statistics, which cover movements of persons with valid travel documents to and from Uganda through gazetted points of entry and exit.”

The gazzeted points of entry and exit include border points and the airports which are also monitored by the ministry.
At least 800,000 of the non-residents indicated in the report entered the country by road.

Uganda is the only country in the East African region where citizens do not hold national identity cards, a situation which complicates the work of the Immigration Department.

A number of foreigners plying all manner of trades have also been found not to possess valid work permits. The report further indicates that arrivals through official border posts increased by 20 per cent between 2010 and 2011, while departures increased by 16 per cent in the same period.