Minister clarifies rumours on passport shortage for travellers

DEPUTY Prime Minister and Acting Minister for Labour and Immigration John Rosso has quashed rumours that the Immigration and Citizenship Authority (ICA) has run out of passports.
“I am aware of information going around that the ICA has nil stock of Papua New Guinean (PNG) passport books.
“This is not true; we have not run out of passports nor have we stopped issuing them,”Rosso said.
“The main issue is because of the two years that we’ve had with the Coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic, a lot of people haven’t travelled resulting in a build-up of expired passports.”
As of the end of last month, ICA has received 23,303 passport applications and on average, that translates to 2,300 per month or 100 applications per working day.
Rosso said while the number of passport books was running low due to the high volume of passport applications received by ICA since the opening of the borders, they were taking all necessary administrative measures to prevent them being completely out of stock.
“The threat of Covid-19 may have subsided, but the effects on normal operations still remain, affecting production and delivery of PNG passports from Austria,” he said.
Rosso said ICA’s main priority was to maintain a normal passport service.