It is worthy of note that the Immigration Department can now deliver a machine readable passport in five working days to applicants. Compared to several years ago this represents a vast improvement and those within the department and the administration responsible for this must be complimented. The officers who service the passport office have also come in for warm praise for their professionalism and conduct.
As uplifting as all of this is, serious problems remain primarily because passport issuing has been completely centralized in the city as is the case with a range of other vital services. This has resulted in countless citizens, particularly those from outside the capital but also from within having to suffer unacceptable indignities in their quest for passports.
In a quite typical case, Berbice attorney Charrandass Persaud related in a June 22 letter to Stabroek News the tribulations of a friend from the Ancient County. Because of the early morning rush and the defined number of applications that can be handled each day the person in question had to travel quite early and was in the line at about 5.45 am (can you imagine what this journey was like prior to the advent of the bridge?) and was around the 40th person. It rained heavily around this time and the long line that juts out from the building and snakes along Camp Road scattered. It mustered again except that the applicant was now the 100th person in the line and after an altercation with other frustrated persons he left for Berbice, He returned the next day at around 5 am, around the 21st in the line, and was serviced at 9.30 am.
This experience is not as bad as some others have endured and on more days than two days. Perhaps more easily dealt with is the manner of lining up fully exposed to the elements each day. It is intolerable in this day and age for members of the public to have to line up on the busy Camp Road and to take their chances with this season’s thunderstorms. There must be some configuration that allows a line to be formed away from the elements and Camp Road.
More serious however is the question of the entire nation of passport applicants pouring through the tiny gates on Camp Road for this very important document. Whatever led to the zealously inflexible centralizing of passport issuing at this office must be reviewed and if not done each contestant in the not too distant general elections should be made to detail in their manifestoes how this and other services will be de-centralisd.
While it is the case in some other parts of the Caribbean that there is only one passport issuing office, that argument couldn’t be solicitous of the comparably vast interior of the country and its distance from Camp Road. It is wholly unconscionable for the administrators to expect that people should be required to travel from Baramita, Springlands and Gunns Strip to secure a passport.
Previous thefts of blank passports and heightened security demands from the US and others have clearly played a part in this blinkered, defensive posture for providing passports. It is time to put this to rest. One would have thought that a governing party which has been in office for 18 years in a row would have been in such a comfort zone that it would have effortlessly been able to plot the establishment of five or six issuing offices.
It has failed to do this and shows no inclination to break these shackles. What this mindset betrays is the lack of confidence of the administration and the police in themselves where such a task is concerned. For all of their bluster and rhetoric about the state of security they are unable to construct how to decentralise and secure such operations. One would have thought it was relatively easy.
Mr Persaud provided some ideas but the only one that should be considered acceptable is one that relieves citizens of the burden of travelling to Camp Road. There should be passport offices on the Essequibo Coast, on the Corentyne and in Regions Three, Five, Nine and 10 at least and more as confidence grows. If this government and its security arms are unable to marshall plans for this it would raise serious questions about their ability to undertake even relatively minor tasks. It is inconceivable how Guyanese citizens of far-flung outposts like Arau and Morawhanna can believe that the passport office in Georgetown caters from them. Many in these places are effectively being denied passports.
And it isn’t only passports but birth certificates and other official documentation. The overarching objective of every government must be the improvement of the quality of service it provides to its citizens and to strive assiduously to accomplish this.
Can it really be said that this government has made a serious effort in this regard in 18 years? Very often during the Cabinet outreaches inaugurated by President Jagdeo the question of services is raised by members of the public. Promises are usually trotted out but too many of the important services remain marooned in Georgetown and constitute a serious impediment to fair and reasonable access to public services.
The industrious staff of the Passport Office should be asked by the subject ministry to present ideas on how the goal of multiple issuing offices can be achieved while taking account of security and other legitimate concerns. The best plans should then be implemented. It will relieve an enormous burden that too many people have to bear on a daily basis.
