The Ministry of Immigration has placed an order of 100,000 passports, which are expected to be shipped to Fiji in two lots – May and June. Line minister Viliame Naupoto said the order “should have been done much earlier” than January. “Once we get in the passports in May, we should be okay. We have a plan in place to ensure that we have stock available,” he said outside Parliament session this week. “By May, we [will] have enough passports.” Many Fijians have expressed frustration over the services provided by the Department of Immigration, raising questions about the competency of the staff and the lack of oversight. Fijians face ongoing passport service delays because of prolonged stock shortages, booking constraints, and high demand. The latest restrictions on passport issuance, imposed by the ministry while they await the arrival of the shipment of blank passports in May, compound long-standing problems with passport services. Since February 25, ordinary passport issuance was limited to urgent travel reasons, such as medical emergencies, employment opportunities, educational purposes, official engagements, and Fiji citizens holding Permanent Residence (PR) status. Available slots on the online lodgement and appointment portal are also fully booked until March 28 and will remain disabled for booking indefinitely. Individuals, who require an appointment before this for urgent travel, must now submit a formal request via letter to the Director of Immigration with documentary evidence. The normal passport application process is set to reopen in June. COMPLAINTS Due to these changes, some locals, who spoke to us on the condition of anonymity, have had to cancel their travel plans entirely. A mother of three said she had booked and paid for four new passports in October last year. While her three children’s passports were collected, her passport is still being processed after the Department of Immigration lost her information. She said no timeline for passport collection was provided. Her plan to visit family and celebrate her eldest daughter’s 21st birthday in Australia is on hold indefinitely. A man shared that his wife had applied for her passport in early January this year — well before the restrictions were announced — so they could both go on holiday. She was advised to collect it after 15 working days, but this was not the case. She was informed to collect her passport in between July and August. “This information was not given at the time of application and processing, so we wasted our time and energy going back to the Immigration Department to pick it up only to be told it was not available,” he said. “This could have been advised using other means.” However, some were lucky to avoid prolonged delays. One woman managed to get her family’s applications processed in time for their move to Melbourne, Australia, next month on the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility (PALM) family accompaniment initiative. She spent around $1600 on passports. Her colleague with the Department of Immigration helped out. The process took an entire month to complete despite a promised 15-day timeline, with multiple trips to the immigration office due to staff errors. There, she found that people who had applied much earlier had not received their passports. “I felt their frustration. Imagine the people who have to travel from rural areas. “We pay good money to get that service done.” A local immigration lawyer, who did not want to be identified, said with the temporary restrictions on passports, the processing timeline was far more uncertain than it was before. The lawyer often works with foreign clients who want to apply for Fijian citizenship and require a passport. Now, she would need to be more diligent about timelines with these clients. “This logistical issue is clearly an internal issue. Shouldn’t they be making some orders in advance so that this entire issue of waiting for a couple of months is avoided?” She also expressed concerns about the way these restrictions are limiting the freedom of movement of Fiji citizens into and out of the country. Despite the seriousness of the passport shortage in Fiji, her biggest concern right now is the permit process for foreign investors. She said that she had “never come across a situation with Fiji Immigration where they’ve ever stuck to the 21-day time frame”. Sometimes, she would need to copy the Prime Minister in E-mails to get a response from the immigration office, which has worked so far. “I don’t think that permit processes are due to any technical issues, but rather consistent delays from the person processing. “Why haven’t we put in place proper internal procedures to ensure that processes are expedited?” – JERNESE MACANAWAI