By Bida Elly David
The Directorate of civil registry, Nationality, Passports and Immigration has on Wednesday warned officials against illegal collection of extra payment from citizens turning to process IDs and promised legal measures against any malpractices.
This statement came following reports of numerous malpractices at the immigration office by some officials daunting high cost of financial charges on citizens who go for the production of Identification documents.
Lately, mainstream citizens raised trepidations over numerous discernments that arose at the immigration office as other officials receive enticement from individuals with high financial strength discerning others with less money from acquiring national documents.
Due to the high cost of charges for the production, majority of citizens in the country especially students, job seekers among others feel deprived from attaining identification documents for further endeavors.
In a statement seen by No.1 Citizen Daily Newspaper yesterday, Lt. Gen. Atem Marol Biar, the director general for Civil Registry, Nationality, Passports and Immigration sanctioned officials against receiving extra payment from any person to facilitate issuance.
He vowed to sue any official or citizen who shall be sketched in the course of bribery or any other sort of derelictions without any compromise.
“In the exercise of the powers conferred upon me under section 5 of the Directorate of Nationality, Passport and Immigration Regulations 2011, I Lt. Gen. Atem Marol Biar Kuek, Director General, Directorate of Civil Registry, Nationality, Passport and Immigration do hereby issue the following order. No official should accept any extra payment from any person in order to facilitate issuance of passports, National or Nationality cards,” he directed.
Furthermore, he pointed out that payment for issuing any document at the immigration should be limited to the expected government rate.
“No one should pay extra fees to acquire passport, nationality or National ID. The total amount of money required to complete the process of acquiring are as follows; Nationality 2,050 SSP, Regular passports 4,500 SSP, Business passports, 30,000 SSP, National ID (Civilians) 4,000 SSP, National ID (Junior officers) 2,200 SSP, National ID(Senior officers) 2,300 SSP, National ID (NCOs) 2,100 SSP. Any person who pays or accepts any fee that exceeds the above mentioned official fee will be taken to court and face the full powers of the law,” he vowed.
Globally, Identification cards have been playing superior roles in countless aspects of life such as flagging ways for jobs, studies, and travels as well as saving one from uncertain crimes. Any citizen of any Country is subjected to acquire them for the aforementioned reasons but many citizens in South Sudan still face acquisition hardships due to high cost of charges as a result of malpractices.