No More Passport

Vanuatu’s stock of green passport booklets has been depleted.

“On behalf of the Vanuatu Immigration and Passport department, i wish to inform all citizens that the green passport booklet is out of stock. We have made payments fort the new booklets at the beginning of this year and we are expecting the booklets to arrive after the 17th of this month, following our communication with the supplier,” the Minister responsible for the issuance of passports and Immigration, Andrew Napuat announced yesterday.

The new stock is expected on the 17th of May, 2018. But if there are delays, the Minister could consider other options, such as other suppliers.

For the time being, Minister Napuat said citizens who will be traveling within the Pacific region will be issued a Certificate of Identity (CI). This document, the Minister explains will only be used to travel within the region.

Those who are travelling to other countries apart from the Pacific region cannot use the CI document and are advised to change their traveling arrangements while waiting for the new Green Passport documents to arrive.

The cost for the CI is Vt7,000 and those applying for the CI will follow the process for a passport application. Once the passport arrives, the office will print passports for pick up then cancel the CI.

The CI will be valid for one year, so it can be used during this period but by then the Passports should arrive for the department to print a new passport.

“Passport shortage is an ongoing issue therefore i have instructed the Acting Director to liaise with relevant authorities to review the arrangement we have with the current supplier and if there is no improvement then I will have no other options but to look for other suppliers,” Minister Napuat, told the local media yesterday.

“On behalf of the Ministry, i sincerely apologize but again i will take this matter as a priority to deal with accordingly so that we will not face with this issue again in the future,” said Minister Napuat.

According to the minister, over 10,000 copies of the Green Passports are printed each year. He said there are still sufficient copies of the diplomatic and official passports and only the Green Passport copies are out of stock.

The current Vanuatu passports are printed by a supplier in Germany, but Minister Napuat has made it clear that he will reconsider this, if there are no other options to have the out of stock Green Passport printed and received in Vanuatu within an acceptable timeframe.

Minister Napuat also took the opportunity to confirm to the local media that it is the intention of his Ministry to increase the validity of passports from five years to ten years and he will seek government approval for this as soon as possible.

This will mean that Vanuatu passport holders will have a further five year extension to the validity to their passports. It will go a long way to assist Vanuatu citizens working and studying overseas and minimize the frequency applying for anew passport every five years, because time is moving fast when citizens are busy in studies, working overseas and in other traveling commitments.

“The Vanuatu citizens deserve this services plus an improved quality of our national passports,” said Minister Napuat.