By William Madouk<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
South Sudanese citizens seeking passports face extended delays as the passport printer has reportedly broken down for over a month, worsening an already rising backlog.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n The immigration department has also run out of national ID and other passport booklets for nearly four months, implicating more frustration for travellers.<\/p>\n Officials at the immigration department have been informing applicants that the printer is broken down and they must wait longer for their documents.<\/p>\n \u201cYes, there is a problem with the issuance of passports and nationality certificates because the printer is not working,\u201d an anonymous source from the immigration department explained.<\/p>\n \u201cThe German printer has a limited lifespan; if it\u2019s not upgraded, it will stop working\u201d, the source added.<\/p>\n Attempts to reach Maj. Gen. Simon Majur, Director of the Directorate of Civil Registry, Nationality, Passport, and Immigration, for comments were unsuccessful by press time.<\/p>\n On July 25, frustrated citizens stormed the Department of Nationality, Passport, and Immigration, accusing officials of deceiving them about the timely issuance of passports and national identity cards.<\/p>\n A woman, whose child requires urgent medical treatment in Israel, shared her distress after waiting since May for the passport, despite paying all necessary fees.<\/p>\n \u201cMy child is ten years old and missed a chance for surgery because of this passport issue. We have been sleeping on the streets, without food or water,\u201d she lamented.<\/p>\n Students have also expressed frustration over the delays, claiming they have missed scholarship opportunities.<\/p>\n \u201cI am not staying in Juba; I came to process my passport. I have been wasting money travelling to Juba for nothing and we are losing scholarships because of the delays,\u201d one student, who wished to remain anonymous.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have presented letters from the Ministry of Education and Foreign Affairs showing we need the passport because we have applied for a scholarship but they kept dodging us,\u201d \u00a0the student added.<\/p>\n In an earlier response, Gen. Simon Majur acknowledged the delays, attributing them to a shortage of passport booklets.<\/p>\n He revealed a backlog that dates back to 2012. He urged citizens to remain patient.<\/p>\n The passport office has faced ongoing scrutiny over delays, largely due to unpaid debts owed to a German printing company.<\/p>\n In 2020, South Sudan halted the issuance of nationality certificates and passports after the company shut down the system due to a cumulative bill of $6.9 million.<\/p>\n The government resumed issuing regular passports and IDs on November 20, 2021, after the Ministry of Finance settled a portion of the debt. However, details about any remaining debts to the company remain unclear.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By William Madouk South Sudanese citizens seeking passports face extended delays as the passport printer has reportedly broken down for over a month, worsening an already rising backlog. The immigration department has also run out of national ID and other passport booklets for nearly four months, implicating more frustration[Read More…]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":27864,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[80,79],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27863","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/Courtesy-photo-8.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27863","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27863"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27863\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27866,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27863\/revisions\/27866"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}