Passport Shortage Will be Rectified by Next Week

Passports – they’ve been in high demand ever since the new electronic system was introduced, but there’s a shortage of them at the Immigration Office, leaving many passport applicants questioning what’s going on. According to the Minister of Immigration, Eamon Courtenay, the issue is simple. There was an error in judgment in the number of new passports that were needed. But that problem will be corrected by the start of next week.

Eamon Courtenay

Eamon Courtenay, Minister of Foreign Affairs

“We underestimated the demand for the new passport. We went on projections of the average use prior to the new passport coming online, and we scaled up – we added an additional amount – a fifteen or so percent and said roughly that’s what we expect – the demand for the new passports. In truth and in fact, it is way in excess of that. The initial amount that we got has been completely exhausted. The good news is that on the twenty-seventh of this month – the twenty-fifth of this month we get a resupply and on the twenty-seventh we hope to clear and to deal with the backlog and we will have enough to meet the demand of people coming in. Then in a few more weeks, we have a much bigger supply, so by the end of this month the problem will be sorted out and it only has to do with the fact that there has been a tremendous demand. If I remember rightly, it’s like we’re processing five thousand new passports a week, which is far more than we anticipated.”