Special commission to probe passport issue
President Anura Kumara Dissanayake is to appoint a special Commission to investigate the passport fiasco, informed sources told The Sunday Times Business.
“This special Commission will analyse what went wrong and by whom,” a source said. He said the new government has completed the hurdle of getting appointments for issuing passports.
The upgraded online passport appointment system that started two months ago, initially garnered over 7,500 token applications, managing to beat the months-long queues and online passport token mafia, top officials said. The public can also get more information on obtaining a passport from the Department of Immigration and Emigration hotline on 1962.
The old token system issued limited tokens daily without transparency, resulting in a token black market, officials revealed.
The country has been having long queues outside the passport office as the existing empty passport books were not adequate to meet the current demand as thousands of Sri Lankans were exiting the country. This increased demand was one of the main reasons that the passport applications often got delayed.
In addition to that bureaucratic process, procurement, clearance issues, corruption fraud and failures in printing equipment also contributed to the shortage of passports.
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