Scarcity: NIS begins production of 30,000 e-passport booklets monthly

 

The Nigeria Immigration Service says its newly inaugurated e-passport production centre in Enugu State will produce 30,000 booklets of the enhanced electronic passport monthly, this is part of efforts to address the perennial passport booklet shortage in the country.

This, it said, would permanently end the lingering challenge faced by Nigerians in obtaining their passports.

NIS noted that the centre would first cater to the needs of people in the South-East.

The NIS in a statement on Saturday said with an average daily production capacity of 1,500 booklets, the centre would process about 7,500 booklets weekly and 30,000 monthly. It also quoted the Minister of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola, as threatening to sanction any NIS official and prosecute any applicant found to be undermining the new reforms.

Speaking at the launch of the enhanced e-passport and inauguration of the Electronic Passport Production Centre on Thursday, the statement quoted the minister as saying these were part of strategic initiatives to put a permanent end to passport scarcity.

He noted that the Enugu facility was strategic given that the people from the region have a huge volume of economic activities with international links, which could require them to have faster and easier processing of their travel documents.

The minister said, “The Ministry of Interior appreciates the volume of economic activities in the South-East and the rising number of citizens from the region who have strong international dimension to their businesses and socio-economic pursuits. They need travel documents. It is our responsibility to provide it for them within the shortest possible time at a reasonable price and without any hassle.”

He added that the centralised passport production centre would fast-track the processing of all applications enrolled in the neighbouring Passport Issuing Centers in the five south-eastern states of Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Imo and Enugu.

He assured passport applicants from the region that the facility would bring an end to the issues of delays, clumsiness and shortage of booklets associated with the production chain. He noted further that the online application and higher grade passport with additional 25 security features would eliminate vices like touting, racketeering and artificial increase in cost, among others.

Aregbesola advised applicants to always apply and make payments online for their preferred categories of passport and process their application via the official passport portal, adding that the arrangement was not only to save time and cost, but also to speed up the process and procedure.”

He warned NIS personnel at the Passport Control Offices nationwide to desist from undermining the new measures put in place to institutionalise efficient passport issuance process in the country. He said any passport applicant who pays money to any NIS staff for the issuance of passport would be prosecuted.

He noted that between 2019 and now, the NIS issued about three million passports to Nigerians, including the 1.3 million issued in 2021 alone. “Also, the last time I checked, over 250,000 passports remained uncollected by applicants and their owners would probably be among those complaining that they were yet to receive their passports,” he said.

He noted however that processing of some passports were delayed because of errors in their applications, which he said could have resulted from patronising louts and other illegal channels.

The Acting Comptroller General of the NIS, Isah Idris Jere, assured Nigerians of quicker and better service delivery with the introduction of the online passport processing and the inauguration of more centralised Passport Production Centres across the country.