Despite the promising news lately of giant strides by the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS), there are strong indications that a potential problem of scarcity of e-passport booklets is looming.
A source at the Immigration service disclosed this to Nigerian newspaper – The Leadership.
The looming scarcity is attributed to huge debts the government parastatal is owing to her major stakeholders.
According to the source, the gross income paid by passport applicants goes directly to the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) Treasury Single Account (TSA), from where the service is supposed to make payment to all stakeholders involved in the passport value chain.
“Let me give you an example. The cost of the 32-page passport booklet outside Nigeria is $132, while the cost of the 64-page category is $230. If you apply outside Nigeria and you pay in dollars, the money goes straight into the Federal Account, which is shared amongst the three tiers of government every month by the Federation Account Committee (FAAC).”
The source also confirmed that there is currently a shortage of 32-page booklets across the 48 passport-issuing outlets outside Nigeria and the 44 outlets in the country.
He also acknowledged that the agency presently has the 64-page booklets in excess but that the demand for it was deficient.
“Our service providers are owed over N16 billion while printed booklets are stuck in warehouses due to our inability to offset these huge debts.
“The Customs Service, DHL and two Nigerian banks are amongst service providers that are insisting on the payment of their outstanding N16 billion balance before the documents would be released to us.
“As a matter of fact, we are meant to understand that the manufacturing firms based in Slovenia, Malaysia, and another in Malta handling the e-passport projects are yet to be reimbursed in line with our agreement to always make payment two weeks after printing and supplying the ẹ-passports.”
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