In Nigeria, if you want an international passport, the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) will tell you that it will takes 6 weeks after biometric to get your passport.
While a 6-week period is put before you, it could take more than 3 month to get that passport.
This has made people to pay exorbitant fees for a faster process.
The Nigerian Immigration Service and Iris Smart Technologies Limited, a company hired by the federal government to produce Nigerian passports blame the Central Bank of Nigeria’s foreign exchange strategy for the shortage of booklets production
The claim was made in Abuja on Tuesday, May 9, by Yinka Fisher, the managing director of Iris Smart Technologies Limited.
He was testifying before the House of Representatives Ad Hoc Committee to Investigate the Proposed Domestication and Processing of Nigerian International Passports.
The business asserted that the Nigeria Security Printing and Minting Company Plc obstructed its efforts after it was unable to win the contract for the creation of the passports.
At its inquiry session, the committee also questioned Idris Jere, the comptroller general of the Nigerian Immigration Service.
Passport Production
Fisher told the committee that the nation’s passport administration was poor before the FG hired them.
“Today, we have a system where there is a central processing hub with a reliable inventory management mechanism,” he said.
“We sent NIS a record 1.9 million booklets last year, which was a record.
“In the first four months of this year, we have distributed nearly 800,000 booklets. This year, we’re on track to set yet another record for supplies.
“The Nigeria Immigration Service gave the Nigeria Security Printing and Minting Plc the opportunity to print the first set of booklets.
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“When they were delivered, it was substandard.
“The government discarded them and decided to have an international tender for the production and embedding of chips.
“Five companies were invited; Three foreign companies, Nigeria Security Printing and Minting Plc and ourselves.
“The Nigeria Security Printing and Minting Plc were found to be technically incompetent and expensive.
“The IRIS bid was found to be technically competent and price competitive. The award was given to IRIS to produce the passports.”
Fisher added that the project, from the beginning, was contractor financed.
“The government did not and has not put any money into it since the beginning.
“The funding has been completed by us. We took a 3bn Naira facility from the bank to start the project. Till now, the government has still not put a kobo.
“We get paid for the goods and services and we deliver. We don’t do revenue sharing. If we deliver 100 booklets, they pay us for 100 booklets. To date, the government has a revenue of over 100bn Naira and over $200m.
“There are two revenue streams; local revenue is about N100bn and overseas sales amount to $200m.”
Lack Of Forex Exchange
In his presentation, Jere decried that the NIS does not have access to the forex it generated, while attributing the shortage of booklets to the unavailability of foreign exchange from the CBN to aid production outside the country.
The NIS boss also decried the absence of a producing factory in Nigeria, noting that the travel document is produced abroad.
He said” “We generate forex from the sale of passports but we do not have access to buy the same booklets, and that is a challenge for NIS.
“The factors responsible for the scarcity of passports include the inability to set up passport-producing factories in Nigeria, as its production is done abroad.
“The major seven components used for producing passports are sold in the international market and the assemblage and production are done in Malaysia.
“This makes the production process solely dependent on forex and the scarcity of forex due to the fall in Naira value is of major concern”.
