Passport printing woes continue as office faces financial crunch

Existing ink stock has run out; immediate clearance of shipment is crucial to avoid national crisis in printing.

ISLAMABAD:

The Pakistan Passport Office is grappling with a severe financial crisis, struggling to pay taxes and duties on the imported paper and ink necessary for printing passports.

According to sources, the Passport Office has requested customs authorities to clear ink consignments on a deferred payment basis.

The existing ink stock has run out, and immediate clearance of the shipment is crucial to avoid a national crisis in passport printing.

It is worth mentioning that the Pakistani passport remains one of the weakest in the world, coming in fourth from the bottom among 103 countries ranked in the Henley Passport Index.

Each consignment is accompanied by two letters: one seeking exemption from the EIF (Electronic Import Form) since payments are made through Pakistan’s embassy in Germany, and the other requesting deferred payment due to insufficient funds for customs duty.

Given the national importance, customs authorities permit both EIF exemptions and deferred payments.

The latest consignment, which arrived on July 28, was promptly cleared under this arrangement. However, duties and taxes exceeding Rs53 million for the last five consignments, including today's, remain pending.

Earlier this month, it was reported that the problem of the delay in issuing passports across the country was about to be solved as the government decided to order eight new machines for printing them.

According to sources, the director general of immigration and passports had prepared a requisition for this purpose and sent it to the interior ministry.

Passport authorities said the new machines would be ordered from abroad in September this year. Six desktops and two e-passport machines will be procured. The new machines are capable of printing 1,000 passports in an hour.

The passport authorities said complaints of delay in issuing the travel document were being received from across the country for the last 1.5 years. They added that with the arrival of the new machines, this problem of the citizens would be solved to a large extent.

Officials stated that the Directorate of Immigration and Passports imports laminate paper and ink for passport printing through Islamabad Airport.

Pakistani passport was tied with Yemen in the recently released ranking, which is in the middle of a brutal civil war, and the three countries ranked below Pakistan — Iraq, Syria, and last-placed Afghanistan — are among the most insecure in the world.