For some time now Trinbagonians have been making a mad dash to get the new machine readable passport. This was obviously based on an overzealous statement made in the Parliament by the Minister of National Security Senator Martin Joseph which announced that all citizens would be afforded the opportunity to obtain the new passport by December 2010. Now I think that a long standing man in the arena of politics should know his people better by now. We like new thing. So people hear that there is a new passport available and by 2010 everybody will have one. We Trinibagonians change that to you must have the passport by 2010. The information was not communicated to the public clearly by the officials. Once a passport has not reached its expiration date it is a valid travel document. It is that simple.
Currently there are more than Twenty six thousand (26,000) uncollected passports. Why we so? Obviously there are 26,000 people walking around comfortable with the fact that they clogged the system and applied for a national document that they had no use for. Mind you I am sure that there were other people who needed to travel urgently and could not be accommodated because the system could only process a certain amount of applications at a time. My passport has expired since November 2007 and exactly two years later I have made no serious attempt to obtain a new one. The main reason being, I have no money to go a damn place. Trinbagonians get on as though when they get a passport they automatically get a ticket to go somewhere. What many of us fail to realize here, is that there is a cost attached to storing those uncollected passports. Not to mention the obvious security risks involved. The next thing that is going to happen is that some innovative Trini working in the Immigration Division would realize that money could be made through some racket involving those passports. So please make an attempt to collect your passport as soon as possible.
What has been your experience with this change to the use of machine readable passports?
Currently there are more than Twenty six thousand (26,000) uncollected passports. Why we so? Obviously there are 26,000 people walking around comfortable with the fact that they clogged the system and applied for a national document that they had no use for. Mind you I am sure that there were other people who needed to travel urgently and could not be accommodated because the system could only process a certain amount of applications at a time. My passport has expired since November 2007 and exactly two years later I have made no serious attempt to obtain a new one. The main reason being, I have no money to go a damn place. Trinbagonians get on as though when they get a passport they automatically get a ticket to go somewhere. What many of us fail to realize here, is that there is a cost attached to storing those uncollected passports. Not to mention the obvious security risks involved. The next thing that is going to happen is that some innovative Trini working in the Immigration Division would realize that money could be made through some racket involving those passports. So please make an attempt to collect your passport as soon as possible.
What has been your experience with this change to the use of machine readable passports?
I have heard countless horror stories of people trying to get their new machine readable passports before the deadline without success. Apparently, appointments are now being given for as far as 2011. Having gone through tremendous hassle to renew my current passport (which expires in 2016), I have no intention of applying for a machine readable passport until it is absolutely necessary. I travel frequently and have not encountered any problems with my "manually read" passport! Even the US Embassy had to publish an advisory recently that said that you don't need a machine readable passport to travel to the US contrary to popular belief.
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