The Central Immigration and Passport Office has so far issued over 15,000 of the new machine readable passports since the launching of the new document on July 13 last year.
Deputy Chief Immigration Officer George Vyphuis told this newspaper in an invited comment that on an average day the passport office issues about 140 of the documents. Meanwhile the passport office has been better able to control the crowds which throng its premises daily for different transactions. According to Vyphuis, the system is now very orderly and every effort is being made to ensure that persons remain off the road.
He said previously immigration officers checked all the documentation of persons visiting the office to ensure that everything is intact.
However he said a decision has been taken to start that process only when the office opens at 8 am each day.
“So we start working at 8 and so no one is forced to come before and we have been able to manage things and we recognize that this is the best way to go,” he said.
Construction works are ongoing at the Camp Street office to extend the building.
According to Vyphuis the new office would complement the new modern system and so persons waiting to be tended to would sit in a waiting area in the extended part of the building.
From very early in the morning there are long lines outside the passport office on a daily basis. Persons from all over the country are forced to come all the way to Georgetown to put in applications for passports as well as to uplift the document.
The passport application and issuance system remains centralized in the city and Vyphuis had recently told Stabroek News that while there would eventually be moves to decentralize that system, this would take some time. (Heppilena Ferguson)
