Long queue for passports: Foreign Minister apologizes
The Sri Lanka government’s failure to supply an adequate number of passports has led to a long queue similar to what the island nation saw during the economic crisis in 2022.
Sri Lanka saw long fuel, cooking gas, and medicines queues when former leader Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s government ran out of foreign currency after the rupee collapsed in 2022 due to wrong economic policies.
However, Rajapaksa’s successor, Ranil Wickremesinghe, has been widely acclaimed for ending the long queues with International Monetary Fund (IMF)- backed economic reforms.
However, the latest queue outside the Department of Immigration and Emigration comes after the government ran out of new passport books amid higher demand for the documents people need to leave the country.
“There is a deficiency. I apologize on behalf of the government. It happened because. We have migrated to a new electronic passport system,” Foreign Minister Ali Sabry told reporters at a media briefing in Colombo.
“According to the order we placed, we will get the new passports from October 16. Until then, we will have to manage with what we have. We could have kept many blank passport books and managed this better. I also accept that this should not have happened.”
The Department of Immigration and Emigration in a statement on Monday, said it has limited the number of blank passports available at the moment and has had to limit the issuance of passports.
“The government has taken the initiative to introduce new digital passports, and for that purpose, it has already invited international bidders to a foreign company,” it said, adding that the tender had been already awarded.
The Department of Immigration and Emigration said that considering the limited number of empty passports, it has made plans to provide 50,000 units of blank passports from the foreign firm awarded the tender to issue the new electronic passports.
“Both passports are expected to be available on the island by the end of October or later.”
The Department also said that out of the total number of passports issued in the last year, only 23 percent of the new passport holders traveled abroad and urged the public to get their passport only if it is essential to travel abroad.