Preparing for the dreaded ‘five-year- experience’

Oct 03, 2012 Letters

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Dear Editor,
The Central Immigration and Passport Office is the country’s lone location for immigration issues, passport- application and related matters. It serves the entire population of Guyana and hundreds flock the office on a daily basis, ever since the decentralised service was stopped several years ago after the introduction of the Machine Readable Passports (MRPs).
You turn up at 7:00 in the morning and find out that 76 persons are there before you. You wonder what time these people left their homes! You remember your ordeal five years ago, leaving Berbice at 2:00 in the morning, with the ‘first boat’ (ferry) and arriving in Georgetown at 4:30am, standing in the rain just to ‘beat the line’ that would accumulate hours later.
Five years later, that situation has not changed much, since dozens still see it necessary to secure an early space at this office.
So you arrive and just after 7:00, an immigration officer takes the line to the [animal] pen— shed— located a few metres from the passport office main building. The main building is filled so the extras are escorted to this waiting shed.
The shed is made of wood, so shabbily done, hot…sun beating in, really not impressive to any tourist doing business at the passport office. You are given a ‘return slip’ with a number that you would need to bring back to uplift your new passport.
They do not renew passports any longer. You have to find $4,000 every five years to get a new Guyana Passport. And the experience at this office is one not to miss, too, every five years. I was having my second ‘five-year- experience’.
An immigration officer came to escort us back to the main building, which seemed to have some space. The line moved under his charge. You are told no eating and no cell phone use in the main building. You arrive in the main building, boiling hot; four air conditioners on the walls, not one working. The windows are opened; persons fanning. You start playing musical chairs. An immigration officer studiously ensures that persons sit according to their numbers and change seats accordingly and move up closer so that they can pay the cashier, of which there were three windows. The heat was unbearable. There were no fans; persons sneezing…some windows sealed off; it was a nightmare. I was afraid of getting sick in there.
You admire the hardworking immigration officer who seemed very upbeat and serious about his job to ensure that persons sit according to their numbers and move to the next chair in orderly fashion and in sync with their numbers.
You then see persons coming inside and just sitting ahead of you. You wonder what is happening. You see a female rank bringing a woman— her friend presumably—and heading straight up to the cashier. You do not remembering seeing that woman playing the game of musical chairs with the rest of the applicants.
The woman pays and goes right into the application area. You wonder what just happened there; you know what happened there but say to yourself, “oh this is Guyana”.
One of the air conditioners comes on after 2 hours; it makes no difference during the heat of 10 o’clock in the morning. The empty water dispenser is finally paid some attention to. The same hardworking immigration officer brings us a half-filled bottle of water and puts it over the dispenser. Part of the concrete floor in the main building is cracked. The television on the wall is receiving poor signals and ‘comes and goes’.
The washroom is located right next to where persons sit in the main building. You MUST close the door after you enter or exit or you know what emanates….
You finally see an immigration officer ready to accept your application. You have a gift bag with you and she immediately asks, “Did you bring your lunch?” You take your seat and tell her, “no”. You fall short of telling her you wanted to bring dinner too, for all the long hours spent there.
You have sympathy with the employees at this office. Surely, it is not their fault for the service and the way things are there. Surely it is not their fault that the government finds it challenging or difficult to decentralise this very important service to the various regions and make MRP applications available in Berbice, etc.
You think of the huge sums of money garnered from the sale of passports, etc., and how much the government invests, especially on the Home Affairs Ministry, yet this does not match the experience, physical appearance and service standard at the Central Immigration and Passport Office. My sister in New York had her Guyana Machine Readable Passport mailed directly to her- you wish you had this kind of treatment.
Everyone has a ‘passport office’ story. I return on Friday to uplift my MRP. And then I will say, “good riddance”— at least until the next 5 years. I hope things get better then—I hope. It’s just a hope.
Leon Suseran

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