Minister for Immigration Viliame Naupoto has revealed today that the Fiji passport offices will be open until 8pm as soon as the new batch of passports arrive, so that it allows people to walk into the passport offices after work and get their passports done.
This is after he was asked by fijivillage News if this budget will see the decrease in delays of passport processing which has been a concern raised by the public lately.
Naupoto says the Ministry of Immigration will be working overtime to clear the backlog of applications that are already in, which will be about 6,000, and then from then on they expect the most normal operations for passports.
He says in terms of permits, the Ministry has been working hard, and the staff have been working overtime for the last month, which has seen 31,000 entries cleared up until yesterday.
Naupoto says this means that there should be a faster process for permits, and getting the passport issue dealt with when the new batch arrives.
He says they are looking forward to get another 200,000 passport books which was announced today, that should keep them going for the next year or two.
The Ministry of Immigration is provided a budget of $17.8 million during the 2025/2026 National Budget announcement today.
