Dear Editor,
I visited the Passport Office at Georgetown a few days ago which was not a very pleasant experience. My first observation was the tons of people waiting in long tedious stagnant lines for hours. I observed an immigration officer will first examine your documents then you go to pay your fees then you make a line by standing, then from a standing line you go to a sitting chair line; it is like a merry go around for hours.
The next line I saw was the line to uplift your passport by handing in your slip. Then it’s another long wait to hear your name called over a microphone. What bothers me most was the loud music from the Police steel band playing in the next door building and hindering people from hearing their names being called. The police are the ones who should set the example, but it seems they could not care less that our hardworking citizens have to stand for hours in a line for a basic passport. What infuriates me is the way this system works. Although I saw lots of Inspectors at the immigration office not one of them had the guts to go and stop the police band.
Then the touts who sell passport holders walk onto the steps dragging people to buy and creating lots of noise; some even offer to get the passport more easily at a price for imprudent people. Then there are the taxi men who rush people into the immigration compound and nothing is done to remove these public nuisances. It’s noise all the way and no discipline, security or law and order. I haven’t seen one armed police officer or soldier there with a proper gun. The security system is zero.
My other concerns are the long wait by people who travel as far as Berbice to submit an application and who have to wait the whole day; the same goes for people coming from Linden, Lethem, Essequibo, etc.
There is no priority line for these people or for those who are very old. I also learned that people from Berbice and other regions can apply for their passports at central Immigration in Georgetown but request that they send the passports to their regions. It doesn’t make a lot of sense to me for a Berbician to travel to Georgetown to make an application for his/her passport to be sent to New Amsterdam upon request.
Why not decentralize the entire passport application system so every region has its own passport office and ease the travel expenses and burdens on our poor citizens. When I was a boy living in Berbice I used to apply for and uplift my passport in New Amsterdam. Now in this age of advanced technology the entire system gets worse daily. It’s lines, lines, lines, and rejection if papers are not filled out the right way. This new machine readable passport is very thin and very inferior. I still wonder why is it the passport holder’s profession is not stated in the passport since that is a vital piece of information. It was required in the old passport so why was it left out on the new one? It is still mind boggling to me. That requirement is on the passport application form.
My next inquiry is why a woman who has been married recently will have to apply for a new passport in order to have her husband’s name included. She has a passport which is just 6 months old, but because she is married she has to apply for new passport that requires another $4000 application fee, travel and other expenses. In my opinion once she produces her marriage certificate, husband’s birth certificate, and her birth certificate Immigration should have the authority to write that the bearer is now married; they can insert her marriage certificate number if they wish in her passport and put their legal stamp on that page to authenticate it. Why does this simple procedure require a new passport application?
It’s more than ridiculous in this age of modern technology that we have to spend a whole day for a simple passport. After 49 years of Independence we are a nation that is left behind when it comes to the proper administration and management of very basic things. It’s my sincere hope in 2016 that this new administration obliterates these long lines I see in every office and implements a more efficient system at the Central Immigration Office in Georgetown.
Yours faithfully,
Rev Gideon Cecil
