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Forensic audit recommends…Ministry of Citizenship should have central location
-with three split division of services
In a bid to improve services at the Passport Office, the forensic audit report into the entity is recommending a sweeping revision of the organization structure to reduce inconvenience to applicants for passports.
Minister of Citizenship, Winston Felix
One of its major recommendations is that the Ministry of Citizenship, with all of its divisions and administrative personnel, should be located in one building or a combination of buildings in one compound.
According to the report, this would facilitate good communication and easy access to key officials and personnel, especially at critical times. At present, the Ministry of Citizenship is under the wings of the Ministry of the Presidency.
However, the Central Immigration and Passport Office is located on Camp Street. It is here that persons from Region four and other regions would converge in order to transact immigration business. The office has become well known, however, for the crowd it draws which extends at times onto the roadway.
Three split division
Minister of Citizenship, Winston Felix, had laid out the organization structure of his Ministry soon after it was established, during his address to the National Assembly in June of 2015. He had stated that the Ministry would comprise two divisions.
One, according to Felix, would have been registering births, deaths and marriages, while the other would have been in charge of registering citizens, naturalization, visa extensions, passport applications and other related matters.
However the auditor, having accessed the internal structure, recommended that there be three divisions; one division devoted to births, deaths, marriages and related matters; another division to deal with passport applications, distribution and control. The final division, according to the auditor, would handle approval of citizenship and renunciation entry.
The auditor acknowledged, however, that all passport applications from citizens are received and processed centrally at the Passport Office in Camp Street, Georgetown. This, the report noted, requires the applicant to be present at the Passport office.
“This is a necessary inconvenience for the public,” the auditor noted. “However, after this first visit, applicants from afar are now able to receive their passports from centers at their nearest point of residence (like) New Amsterdam, Linden, Lethem, Anna Regina, Corriverton.”
“So in effect, only one visit by the applicant to Georgetown is (usually) necessary. In the medium term with the use of technology and internet services, it is envisaged that all applications for passports can originate at the regional centres, where an initial verification process can take place by immigration officers assigned to the regions for interview of applicants and ensure that all documents are in order.
“The documents could then be dispatched internally to the central passport office in Georgetown.”
Felix, in a recent release, stated that his Ministry was in the process of fine tuning plans to decentralize and debut services his portfolio provides in East Berbice-Corentyne (Region Six).
The rationale for this, he had stated, was due to the fact that a large number of those who line up at the Central Immigration and Passport Office in Georgetown are from that region. He had related that offices will be opened in New Amsterdam and Corentyne and that they are in the process of identifying the best suited buildings.
Other areas reportedly earmarked for these services are Essequibo, Linden and Lethem.
The forensic audit report, which was compiled by Maurice Solomon and Company; Chartered Accountants and Management Consultants, was completed by March 16 and recently released. The audit is one of several announced by the present Government soon after coming into office. Maurice Solomon had been given the Passport & Police Office to audit for the sum of $5.5M.
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