President Irfaan Ali yesterday promised that in one week, the backlog of over 5,000 outstanding passports will be gone.
He made this announcement yesterday via social media when addressing several issues, including the passport backlog. The President stated that there are over 5,700 passports to be issued to persons in Guyana and in the diaspora and asserted that in a week’s time the issue will be dealt with.
“So, I have brought together the team and they are working in a concerted way. Twenty-four-hour shifts to have this entire backlog of 5,302 plus a backlog of about 400 for the diaspora. So, that is just about over 5700 passports in the backlog nationwide and in the diaspora. They are working to completely bring to nil this backlog by next Friday. So, all things being equal we don’t have any challenges with the machine.”
Over the past few months, people have been complaining about the delay in the delivery of passports due to various issues. As a result, some persons have had to delay their travels while others are unable to engage in the process of applying for visas.
At the passport office, applicants are being told that they would have to wait 40 days for their new passports. The authorities say that this is because of the shortage of blank passports.
The complaints eventually reached the ear of the President who decided that it was prudent to intervene to move the process along.
“I have seen persons making complaints about the length of wait for a passport. Well, as you know, there was a huge backlog, there was a shortage of passports and this was a global issue. Now, we have purchased a lot of passports back into the system.”
He also urged persons to utilise the passport offices in their regions so as to reduce the backlog at the central passport office in Georgetown.
“What I have seen is that people are not utilising the regional offices. Take for example Central George-town, we have about 4,048 passports in the backlog, and in Berbice about 900 passports in the backlog. Linden has about 102 passports in the backlog, Anna Regina 103, Parika 45, Bartica 5. When taking the totality of that and some here and there, we have a backlog of about 5,300-plus passports.”
