Nearly all passport applications are processed and in due time.
Director of Passports at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Francis Danti Kotia who disclosed this put the rate of completion of processing of applications at 99%.
Speaking Monday on Joy FM’s Super Morning Show, Kotia credited the switch to the biometric system with the improvement.
“When the contract was signed for biometric passports to be issued in 2010, a certain target was given both contractor and the passport office and we have exceeded that target,” he said.
He added: “in 99.9% of the cases, we are able to process applications in due time.”
The Director said the cause of most delays in passport applications is an offspring of going through middlemen.
Explaining this, Mr Kotia said these applicants just pay the middlemen and expect to receive their passport and when they don’t it as expected, they blame the Office.
Sometimes, the applicant does not even see the form and the information provided on it.
According to the Director of Passports, the middlemen provide wrong information when filling the forms –including phone numbers.
He said, as a result, they cannot continue the process and because the contact information is wrong, we cannot reach the applicant to rectify.
“This causes that application to be stalled,” he said.
On other cases of delays, Mr Kotia said the increasing number of applications causes their system to slow down.
This, he said will soon be a thing of the past because there are “ongoing efforts to expand and upgrade the system.”
