A major backlog that resulted in more than 31,000 visa and permit applications getting clogged up in the Immigration Department system has been cleared, with the department’s services expected to return to normal next month.
Immigration Minister Viliame Naupoto told Parliament that technical issues that arose during a system integration last month led to a large volume of applications being “stuck” at the entry stage.
“Over the last month, staff have been working to clear backlogs in our permit and visa processing system from the month of June, the whole of June,” Mr Naupoto said.
“For three, four weeks in June, it was found a total of 31,144 permit applications were stuck in the system as a new system was introduced.
“The integration did not happen well, and 31,144 permit applications were stuck.”
Mr Naupoto said that in the process of clearing the backlog, staff found 9843 applications still needed full processing.
“Of those 9843, they have cleared, as of this morning (Tuesday) 6831, and we expect to clear the remaining 3012 at the end of this month, in two weeks’ time.
“When that’s done, we expect the visa processing and permit processing as well to flow.”
Mr Naupoto also confirmed that as of yesterday (Wednesday) morning, they had received 1000 work permit applications.
