Govt officials, disciplined forces to use official e-passport

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Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama with staff of Fiji Immigration Department today. Picture: JONA KONATACI

SENIOR officials of Government and members of the disciplined forces will now be using an official e-Passport.

Director of Immigration Nemani Vuniwaqa said the official e-Passport was new and was designed for Government officials who travel on official visits abroad.

The cost of an official e-Passport is $250 while the urgent process cost is $300.

He also said that at times, Fijian times soldiers on Tour of Duty (TOD) would be denied entry into countries like Israel.

He said this was because of the Arab stamps on the passports.

Mr Vuniwaqa said at the moment, Fijian soldiers were using ordinary and emergency passports when they travelled  to Syria.

He also said that having an e-Passport was safer and that lesser questions would be asked by boarder securities.

“The advantage of having this (e-Passport) is that it is much more safer,lesser questions will be asked by the boarder securities.

” On the other hand, quick facilitation time and that is if you go to a country where there is smart gates or e gates,you can go through these gates with these passports, you don’t have to go to a counter where there is someone will be looking at your book whilst you process it and place it through the counter on the smart gate it identifies everything is in here as per what is on the chip and then you can through without going through the line at the counter.”

Meanwhile,the permanent secretary for the Prime Minister’s Office, Yogesh Karan said the electronic chip that was included in the Official e-Passport included all back-up data that was required by the immigration department.

“We put it here and this is linked to the international boarder management system,” he said.

Mr Karan also said that there were plans to install smart gates at our airports.

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