Waiting to exhale

NOT ONLY is the disclosure that the waiting time to get a passport in this country is the longest in the Caribbean embarrassing, it also embodies in the worst way possible what we have come to expect from the state sector.

Members of the travelling public have rightly been dismayed by the long wait times. It can take more than six months to get a passport after an appointment is made here, while in Jamaica, a country with twice our population, no appointment is needed and it takes seven days. (Incidentally, Jamaica implemented passport-reading machines at its main airport long before we started to do the same.)

The six-month delay is not only a tremendous inconvenience to the travelling public, but it also affects the mobility of labour and commerce and places unnecessary strain on families. It’s tiresome and unnecessary. We must improve the efficiency of the system. Believe it or not, there was a time when the regular boast of officials from the relevant agency was of reduced waiting times. How things have changed.

For now, the long delays are almost as bad as what entails in our healthcare system in which people are placed on waiting lists for years. There, too, the State has made some effort to improve things in the past, but the burdens on the system remain high; in many respects it will always never be enough.

But processing an application for a passport should not have to be such a drawn-out affair, especially when it simply involves processing documentation and cross-referencing with state records. What’s the use of computerisation of new birth papers, of machine-readable documents, of the plethora of advancements in information communications technology if they do not enhance the overall system and make it easier for the citizenry and for state officials?

Some cases may be different from others, and the State may desire to ensure it is being even-handed by promulgating such a lengthy waiting time. But that is still no reason to subject people to such delays, especially when the bar in other Caricom nations is set differently. In Grenada a passport takes three days.

We welcome the assurance from Minister of National Security Stuart Young that this matter is being looked into. That inquiry must be done quickly and result in real improvements, not empty public sector cant.

Elsewhere, it must be observed that when it comes to things like visa applications, some countries have even made the entire process computerised: you can just fill in an online form, drop off or mail in your passport, then your application is processed and materials returned.

If it is really the case that we are a regional leader, we should be making life easier for citizens and encouraging regional travel and movement. Increasingly, it seems, we’re leading in all the wrong things.