In December 2021, thousands of applicants lined up at Uganda’s Kyambogo passport collection centre in Kampala. The Daily Monitor reported that immigration authorities had sent collection messages before the documents were ready. People waited for hours, and many left without receiving passports. Officials blamed a technical glitch that brought many clients to the centre at once. Demand had also risen sharply as more Ugandans sought passports for overseas employment: annual issuance, about 60,000 in 2017, had more than doubled. Covid-19 staffing limits reduced capacity, while the same month brought a damaged fibre-optic cable, connection problems with the revenue authority and maintenance of the visa portal. The queue was created by more than heavy demand. A digital instruction—come and collect—did not match the physical state of the documents, turning an inaccurate notification into thousands of unnecessary journeys and hours of waiting.