For the first half of the year, more than 61,000 new passports have been issued, which represents a sizeable increase compared to the figure for the same period last year, according to Minister of Citizenship Winston Felix.
Felix made the disclosure to the Parliamentary Sectoral Committee on Foreign Relations on Wednesday.
According to the figures presented, a total of 61,501 passports were issued from January 1 to June 30, comprising 52,867 to locally-based Guyanese and 8,634 to those in the diaspora.
For the same period in 2015, a total of 50,950 new passports were issued, comprising 43,089 to locally-based citizens and 7,861 to those based overseas.
For 2015, a total 102,601 new passports were issued, representing an increase from the 84,697 that were issued in 2014.
In recent weeks, there has been a surge of applicants, resulting in long lines spilling onto the road outside the Camp Road passport office.
Felix disclosed in a letter that the office was receiving around 400 applications per day.
When the build-up began, Felix had stated that it had been sparked by rumours of a steep hike in passport fees. However, even after a statement from him dispelling this, the numbers at the office have continued to grow. Observers have pointed to the five-year lifespan of the machine-readable passports, the return of a large number of overseas-based Guyanese and prospective applications for US visas as more plausible reasons for the rush to the Passport Office.
In an interview with Stabroek News earlier this week, Felix disclosed that in light of the increased demand at the Georgetown location, efforts are being made to decentralise the service as well as increase the capacity of the Georgetown office, which has also been processing over 100 weekly applications from New York alone.
Passport operations are to start in Linden from around mid-August and some work is going on for similar operations in Berbice and Essequibo.
