By William Madouk
The Directorate of Civil Registry Immigration Passport and Nationality (DCRIPN) is facing a worsening regular passport crisis due to stock-out of passport booklets brought by the government’s failure to pay 1.74 million US dollar debts to a contracted Dutch firm.
The immigration announced a temporary stoppage for the printing of regular passports due to booklets’ stock-out, throwing hundreds of trapped citizens wondering what they would do at recent movement.
Director General of Immigration, Lt-Gen Atem Marol, after seeing long queue waiting for travel papers, announced to them that the immigration has run-out of passport booklets citing the non-payment of arrears to the supplier.
“The booklets are ready and it will not delay, it can be shipped from Germany to Turkey and to South Sudan. But what stops Turkey’s plane these days is Sudanese crisis because our airspace is controlled by Sudan,” Marol told The Citizen yesterday.
“If this money is paid [arrears of $1.74 million], I will talk to them [the company], then they will still ship the booklets through Kenya to South Sudan,” he assured.
With the latest development, many people will be forced to cancel or postpone planned trips out of the country for business, study, medical emergencies, that would result in countless yet avoidable losses.
Government of South Sudan and Germany Company, Mauhlbauer signed an agreement in 2011, to allow the firm to provide passport and national identity cards booklets as well as printing.
One citizen who spoke to No.1 Citizen Daily Newspaper on condition of anonymity for security reason, lamented that he spent a month before getting the passport and that only was made possible after meeting director general who approved his request.
“It was very hard to meet DG until I was almost giving up but because I spent more than 150, 000 SSP and also in need of passport, I didn’t give up,” he said off record.
The source complained as to why the immigration department doesn’t respond on time, adding that there are some conditions that cannot wait for long time to acquire the documents.
South Sudan halted issuance of Nationality Certificate Identification card and passport in 2020, after its German Technology provider shutdown the system over failure to pay accumulative bill of USD 6.9 million.
Government resumed issuance of regular passports and nationality IDs on November 2021, after the Ministry of Finance paid USD 3.4 million to the Company.
Out of USD 6.9 million, the remaining balance is 1.74 million US dollars that the government still owes the Dutch firm.
In November last year, the Directorate of Civil Registry, Nationality, Passports and Immigration made new increment of fees for the issuance of nationality, passports and other related national identification documents.