Expatriate Bangladeshis without passport

The irregularities and corruption that allegedly vex the passport sector have reached a new level with about 50,000 expat Bangladeshis in Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Malaysia unable to get machine readable passports (MRP) although they paid the requisite fees more than a year ago. The offender this time is IRIS Corporation Berhad, a Malaysian company which did not care to provide the Department of Immigration and Passports (DIP) with the information of the applicants or most of the 50 crore Taka collected from them as application fees. And the Ministry of Home Affairs which oversees the DIP and had a contract with IRIS, allowed it to terminate the contract without finishing the job. 

The consequences have been disastrous for the expatriate workers who are facing difficulties at work and during travels as most countries refuse to accept manual passports after the International Civil Aviation Organisation askedall member states to replace their manual/ hand written passports with MRPs before 24 November 2015. To make matters worse, the applicants will have to pay for their passports again, according to officials of the Bangladesh embassies in the said countries. 

This is unacceptable. The ministry should take responsibility for the imbroglio and see to it that workers do not have to pay for passports they did not receive. Migrant workers contribute significantly to the economy and they deserve to be treated better. However, it's not just expatriate workers. A majority of households, reportedly fall victim to all kinds of hassles while accessing services from the passport offices in the country. 

It is high time the authorities fixed the problems crippling the passport sector for good.