Ihusaan says 2,600-passport backlog will be cleared within five days once new stock arrives this weekend

Homeland Security Minister Ali Ihusaan says Immigration still faces a backlog of more than 2,500 passport applications, but expects to clear it within five days once the new stock arrives this weekend. 

The delay in receiving passport booklets had earlier forced Immigration to extend the validity of expired passports until June next year and issue emergency passports for short-term travel.

Immigration told Sun on Tuesday that new stock would be available next week. Then, speaking at a news conference on Thursday, Ihusaan said the German printing company’s technical issue has now been resolved and Maldives will receive fresh passport booklets this weekend. He assured that passport issuance will return to normal next week.

“At the moment, there is a backlog of about 2,646 applications, and it will take us about five days from that day to clear it,” he said. He added that urgent travel cases will continue to receive passports without difficulty.

Ihusaan noted that around 350 people apply for passports daily. When President Dr Mohamed Muizzu assumed office, passports were issued at five locations; today, 39 centres provide the service. He said that while some major countries take two weeks to a month to issue passports, Maldives will resume issuing passports within 24 hours.

Responding to a question, Ihusaan said the passport stock is not completely depleted. He stressed that the Maldivian passport is among the strongest in Southeast Asia in terms of security features, and therefore cannot be printed by just any supplier. “They [DERMALOG Identification Systems GmbH] are very reputable, and have not had any problems so far. So we are building a stock that can cater for such things rather than having multiple suppliers,” he said.

To clear the backlog, Ihusaan said Immigration will extend service hours and increase printing capacity.