More Monkey Business?




The Independent (Banjul)

EDITORIAL
August 10, 2001
Posted to the web August 10, 2001

Banjul, the Gambia

Gambians are being told to get ready for yet new calibre of passport to be
issued by the Immigration Department. It seems the existing passports do not
measure up to what is seen as standard quality.

This new passport project means that once again millions of Dalasi would be
spent to prepare a document that may be discarded in six months as is the
case (how many times were they changed?). Moreover Gambians are once again
expected to pay for them. The reason advanced for the proposed passports is
quality and standard, which by inference discredits the ones currently in
use. The emphasis on quality especially where a state document as sacredly
important as a passport is concerned, is imperative if not for anything else
but to discourage falsification. It is also important that passports are
issued to people who genuinely are Gambians, satisfying all the requirements
to acquire them.

However, it is stupefying that the immigration department is in the habit of
renewing passports to enhance its quality every six months. Moreover, it is
interesting for the department to be working in terms of enhancing the
standard of the passports when earlier this year a story carried by this
paper, suggesting the sub-standard nature of Gambian passports was flatly
denied as ludicrously baseless and sensationalist. The department had
insisted that the passports in use are not prone to photo-substitution,
which means they cannot be duplicated. That curt, dismissive note came even
after some diplomatic missions here questioned the quality of our passports.

But if we are to give the department the benefit of the doubt why is it
necessary at this time to issue a new calibre of passports with a supposedly
enhanced standard? Are the ones being used not measuring up? Was the
department uncomfortable with the truth when it was notified of it? Or is it
yet another government department weary of nose-poking journalists incapable
of minding their owns business?

Whatever the reason behind the department's denials then and its passport
project now, the truth is that something is amiss somewhere somehow. There
are hand-written and computerised passports which smacks of inconsistency.

The passport problem is more than just a question of standard. Everybody
knows that Gambian passports are not only suspected of being sub-standard
but land in the wrong hands for the wrong reasons. Non-Gambians use the
"back door" to acquire these precious documents with the knowledge of some
immigration officials. Only God knows how many of them possess the document,
which by all indication has ceased to be the exclusive preserve of Gambians.

So any restructuring by the immigration department should embrace this dodgy
question of non-Gambians slipping the net. As it invest millions to get
Gambians "better" passports and expects the public to pay onerously for
them, the department should beware that holders of passports have the key to
our country's image. Holders of the document who commit crimes outside the
country are blamed for the dent in our image, which has suffered
significantly in recent years.

But yet again we are constrained to ask whether it is a case of Gambians
doing the wrong things abroad or a question of our passports falling into
the wrong hands? Perhaps the immigration department could shed light on this
dark side that comes begging for answers.



_________________________________________________________________
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L
Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html
You may also send subscription requests to [log in to unmask]
if you have problems accessing the web interface and remember to write your full name and e-mail address.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------