Lethem Passport Office opens in one day

Sep 02, 2022 News

The $42M passport office now in use at Lethem.

Kaieteur News – President Irfaan Ali had promised that the $42.5M passport office at Lethem, Region Nine that was languishing for years would become operable in one month but after the Kaieteur News highlighted issue surrounding the building, it was reportedly opened in one day.

This disclosure was made by the Regional Democratic Council (RDC) of the Region Nine District on Thursday. According to post made on its Facebook page, the RDC, announced, “Lethem Passport Office is now operable, Residents can access services in Region 9.” The RDC also pointed out that the doors of the office were opened for the first time to the public on Monday, August 29.

Monday was one day after Ali made the promise to residents during an outreach at St Ignatius Village. The President was forced to make the promise after one of the residents, Daniel James, raised the issue of the new Passport Building that never worked. James told the President, “There is a building, a Passport Office already built in Lethem, I just want to know when we will be able to use it because it would bring great benefit to the entire Region.”

The RDC stated that construction of the Passport Office began in 2018 and was completed in 2021. However, since its completion it had never served its purpose and Lethem residents still had to face the hassle of travelling miles and spending thousands of dollars for a trip to the city just to fix and uplift their passports.

The RDC welcomed the President’s intervention to make the office operable within a day and described it as “a long-awaited day that came to an end”.

Residents can now the use the services of the new office from Mondays to Fridays starting from 08:00hrs to 13:00hrs. The idea to build an Immigration Office in Central Lethem was an initiative by the previous A Partnership for National Unity + Alliance for Change (APNU+AFC) Government. In December 2018, the then APNU+AFC Minister of Citizenship, Winston Felix, had announced that his Ministry had set aside some $50M from its $1.6B budget for the construction of the office.

Kissoon and Sons was reportedly awarded the contract after agreeing to build it for only $42.5M. Based on information received by this media house, the project faced many delays but was finally completed in early 2021 under the current People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) Government but was never commissioned. The money was expended as part of a plan to decentralise immigration services from Georgetown and to eradicate the long lines normally seen in front of the Central Passport Office at Eve Leary.

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