By Yiep Joseph
Government is set to resume the issuance of passports and nationality certificates after a month-long disruption caused by a breakdown of production machines.
In August, authorities halted the issuance of the documents due system breakdown.
During a press briefing on Friday, Maj. Gen. Simon Majur Pabek, Director for the Civil Registry, Nationality, Passport, and Immigration, announced that the system has been restored.
He confirmed that production will resume as normal starting Monday, September 23rd, but only for regular passports and Nationality certificates.
Maj. Gen. Pabek said that diplomatic passports will not be issued yet, stating that the focus will be on processing standard passports and nationality certificates for citizens.
“We have been without printing for three or four weeks; the system was down, the machine was having a technical issue, and now it has been fit and printing will resume normally,” Majur said.
Gen. Majur expressed that a team of experts has been working hard to ensure that the system is restored and printing resumes.
He, however, revealed that the passport booklets could not be enough as many people have already applied.
“I would like to notify the public that the passports we receive are still limited with the numbers that apply,” he said.
He revealed that the immigration office would focus on helping students and those travelling for studies due to the limited booklets.
“Due to the limited quantity, we have received, we are going to give priorities to applicants with urgent medical referrals, students admitted to foreign countries and international employees,” he said.
He added that still the country has not secured diplomatic passports.
“In a similar note, diplomatic passports are not available, and we urge government officials to use the special and official passports that are currently available,” he said.
The director revealed that many people continued to apply in the previous years and did not get their documents; hence, there is a huge accumulation.
He added the recent number of booklets received could not even manage to settle all the applicants in the system.
“These issues of there being no passport have been going on for some time, I think since 2021, and for that reason, there is a high level of accumulation for applying but did not receive the passport whatever the reason, so we get a big number around 50,000 in the system,” he said.
He mentioned that there are approximately 20,000 booklets available, but acknowledged that they may not be sufficient for everyone.
The director expressed hope that the government would soon develop strategies to end such a problem of shortage of booklets.
The last-month breakdown has led to a growing backlog of applications, further exacerbating the frustration among South Sudanese.
The department has been grappling with systemic issues for years, including financial troubles and disputes with international partners.