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KARACHI, Nov 28: The substantial sum of Rs200 million, owed by the Immigration and Passports Department (I&PD) to the National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) for verifying applicant details, is unlikely to be paid any time soon, Dawn has learnt.
When contacted, IP&D director-general Brigadier (retd) Mian Khalid Habib initially denied that any arrears existed. However, when Dawn pointed out the contradictions between his statements and those of Nadra chief Brigadier (retd) Saleem Moeen, Mr Habib conceded that arrears had piled up and said that the issue was being tackled at higher levels.
The Nadra chief maintained that the I&PD owed it over Rs200 million for the verification of passport applicants’ details. “Had it been any other organisation, Nadra would have withdrawn the verification facility in view of the unpaid arrears,” said Mr Moeen. “However, since the issuance of passports is vital, we are continuing the service to prevent the spread of fake passports.”
Speaking to Dawn from Islamabad, I&PD director-general Mr Habib conceded that payments were due but referred to the sum as “a very small amount.” He eventually said that this was an issue between two government departments and likened it to transferring money from one pocket to another. Agreeing, however, that Nadra ought to be paid for the service it was extending, Mr Habib said that “the issue is being tackled at a higher level and will hopefully be resolved soon.”
Asked about the shortage of lamination plastic that had hampered the issuance of passports some time ago, Mr Habib said that the problem had been that the plastic, which was supplied by Nadra, had not met the required quality standards. “The matter has now been resolved and should not recur,” he commented, adding that the I&PD stored enough lamination plastic to cover 20 to 30 days only. “It cannot be stored for a longer period because of security and storage specifications,” he explained.
According to the I&PD director-general, between 10,000 and 12,000 passports are issued every day across the country. With the fees standing at Rs1,200 for the ordinary passport (ready in 12 days) and Rs4,000 for the urgent (ready in five days), he claimed that the department generated Rs6.5 billion in 2006. Of this, a mere four to five per cent was spent on the department’s administration.
Meanwhile, Nadra’s Mr Moeen told Dawn that in December 2004, his department handed the passport printing facility over to the I&PD. This included the hand-over of high-tech inkjet passport printers, laminators, passport reading machines, computerised quality-check and packing stations, a fully equipped chemical laboratory, a hardware laboratory and an environmental control system which is essential for the printing of sophisticated machine-readable passports.
Sources within the database and registration authority told Dawn that Nadra’s contract for the maintenance of system and supplies expired in late 2006 and the I&PD had not extended the agreement, despite many reminders. They added, however, that early this year Interior Secretary Kamal Shah asked Nadra to provide lamination plastic for passports, which the authority did on that one occasion. “Currently, there is no agreement between Nadra and the I&PD, and the former is not responsible for the latter’s system or supplies,” said the sources.
Machine-readable passports meet standards prescribed by the International Civil Aviation Organisation and include a number of safety features such as the ‘public key information’ under which encrypted data is saved in the passport’s bar code. Another safety measure already in place in other parts of the country and soon to be introduced in Karachi is that upon passport delivery, the receiver’s photograph and fingerprint would be recorded to ensure that the true owner was taking the document.
