At midnight on Wednesday, Fijians desperate to acquire a passport were already lined up outside the Immigration Department along Robertson Rd in Suva.
By the crack of dawn yesterday, the queue had snaked into neighbouring Nina St, some frustrated and many more angry.
The mad rush followed the Immigration Department’s announcement on Tuesday that walk-in passport applications would not be accepted from today.
The department also serves only 100 walk-ins on a first come first served basis.
A mother of three who preferred to remain unnamed said she arrived at 6.30am to find people already queuing outside of the Immigration office.
“They told us only the first 100 people will be served and I thought we were not going to get a ticket but thank God that we got ticket number 74.
“But the disappointing part of it was that I came in at 6.30am and was finally served after 4pm.
“So, you can imagine just how long some of us had to wait.”
A woman and her son from Davuilevu were two of the early commuters reaching the front doors of the Immigration office at 3am.
“The first person was here at 12 midnight,” she said.
“We thought by coming early we would be able to be served quickly but there is only two counters open right now so we don’t know when we will be served.”
Many vented about the long wait and questioned the department’s procurement plans as it was “always running out of passports” despite knowing there’s a huge demand.
“You would think that by now they have a system in place to address these issues,” she said.
“I feel for the people that come from rural and maritime areas.
Questions sent to the Immigration Department yesterday remained unanswered.
On Wednesday, Minister for Home Affairs and Immigration Pio Tikoduadua said there were plans to acquire 100,000 blank passports.
Responding to queries on the stock of blank passports, he said under the current contract with a supplier from Germany, the number of passports was limited to only 40,000.
“We are looking at acquiring 100,000 in the new contract to avoid situations like this,” he said.
He said the current passport supplier was from Germany and the Ministry has put out a tender already for a new passport provider.
The new consignment of passports is expected early next month.
