“Requests for ordinary
passports are not on priority for the moment,” an official at the Passport and
Immigration Office in Islamabad told The Express Tribune. More than 500,000
applications have piled up, but a little over 2,000 passports are being printed
daily, he added, speaking on condition of anonymity.
A colleague of his, however, placed the number much lower at less than 500
passports a day.
“No passport has been issued on an application with urgent fee since January 28
this year, while ordinary passports have been pending since November last year,”
he added.
The official said the problem is deep-rooted and could not be resolved for at
least another two to three months.
“The lamination required for printing passports is not available … the interior
ministry and National Accountability Bureau (NAB) cancelled the tender for the
procurement of lamination,” he revealed.
The accountability body stopped the immigration office from going ahead with its
procurement deal with a company that had provided it lamination before,
declaring it illegal.
NAB maintained the deal was made without publishing a fresh tender, a violation
of Public Procurement Regulatory Authority rules, the official said. He added
that the passport office had the capacity to print around 8,000 passports daily,
but without lamination and ink “nothing could be done.”
Another official, however, said the problem was much more complicated than it
appeared. “The office and staff’s services have been overstretched due to the
establishment of unnecessary sub-offices across the country,” he maintained.
According to the official, five years ago, there were no more than 27 passport
offices in the country.
“There are 70 offices today … some were opened just to oblige public
representatives,” he claimed. The official said that while there were still no
passport offices in bigger districts, such as Sanghar, offices were set up in
places like Koobay Chak – the constituency of former premier Yousaf Raza
Gilani’s brother – or villages like Jalalpur Pirwala and Qadirpur – the
constituencies of Gilani’s sons.
“More offices mean more data has to be processed at the printing press. The
monthly data went up from 8,000 to 18,000 and the staff at the office was forced
work beyond capacity,” said the officer. This resulted in the quick consumption
of raw material for passports’ printing, he added.
Furthermore, certain officers were entertaining requests from ‘passport agents’,
who sit outside the offices of the National Bank of Pakistan. “Such requests
were dealt on priority basis… as such they increased day by day.”
The process of issuing a fresh tender and subsequently procuring new lamination
material will take at least two months, said the official. “It does not seem
high on the government’s priority list,” he added.
Passport and Immigration Director General Wajid Bukhari was unavailable for
comments when contacted.