11,846 passports generated in C/River for only 11 months – NIS
The Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS), Cross River command, says a total of 10,846 passports were produced by the command between January and November 2022.
The state controller of the NIS, Chris Baikie, who disclosed this to the newsmen in Calabar on Thursday, said the figure included both the E-Passport and the Enhanced E-Passport.
He noted that 1,966 Enhanced E-Passports that took effect in August were produced between August and November, while the figure for the E-Passports produced was 8,880.
The controller, who lamented inadequate office space and manpower as the major challenge affecting operations in the command, however, noted that a total of 670 passports were uncollected within the same period.
Speaking on the issue of inadequate office space, Baikie stressed that this has encouraged indiscipline among staff and also impacted negatively on productivity.
According to him, "it is scandalously inadequate." We need space to offer quality service and to be very productive.
"The way we are all presently lumped together is counterproductive and encourages indiscipline where you have both junior and senior staff seated together in one small office."
"It also doesn't help members of the public because we can't give them the quality service they deserve."
The controller said that the command has applied for 33.4 hectares of land from the Cross River government to address the issue.
On manpower, Baikie said that the present 324 staff strength in the command needs to be doubled to effectively discharge their constitutional responsibility.
Similarly, he said, paucity of funds and lack of logistics were also a hindrance to the command's operation.
"The only Hilux vehicle the command has is not in a good enough condition to go outside Calabar."
"You know also that it is part of our statutory responsibility to go round hotels for expatriates that are not cleared, but can't even do that because of lack of vehicles.
"Like the issue of office space, this is also affecting our operation across the 18 local government areas of the state where we have offices," he stated.
