Monrovia- The ministry of Foreign Affairs has announced that the Passport Division has closed, Leaving Many Liberians quest of getting their Passport to play this DV in dilemma.

In an exclusive interview with a local daily, the Assistant Minister for Public Affairs at the Foreign Ministry, Slyvester Pewee, stated that the Ministry had to halt the process of issuing Ordinary Passports because they were overwhelmed with new applicants.

“We stopped issuing the Ordinary Passport from Monday, October 21, 2019, that will run through Friday, October 25 and we will resume taking in new applicants beginning Monday of next week,” said the Minister.

Asst. Min. Pewee disclosed, “We are having what I will refer to as an unusual influx of citizens for the ordinary Liberian passport and this is happening, perhaps because of the U.S. lottery program’s new measures.”

According to him, normally, the Bureau sees at most 200 to 250 applicants for the Ordinary passport but presently the number has escalated to an “alarming” amount of 600 to 1000 applicants daily, something he termed as “unfortunate.”

“Our system has been a little bit overburdened and the issuing system got some problems. We could not continue because our system is used to process around 200 to 250 applicants a day,” Min. Pewee said.

To not encounter similar problems of influx of applicants at the Bureau of Passports in the future, the official spokesperson of the Foreign Ministry stated that the Ministry is working on a new procedure which will allow at most the processing of 300 applicants daily. 

To start fresh, he says that the Bureau has to clear the ‘Backlog’ by firstly issuing passports to all of its old applicants before reopening the system.

“We have a lot of individuals already who applied for passports which are still within the system. So the system needs to clear those individuals and then we can now begin the process again. That is the reason why we closed the process for five working days to allow us clear close to 2,000 applicants that have overwhelmed the system,” the Minister disclosed.

However, Pewee disclosed that the Bureau of Passports will open for applicant with special and critical cases when necessary.

“Liberians that are ill and Liberians that need some quick intervention in terms of travel; you will have to provide information/documentation to be eligible for this,” he disclosed.