Letter to Editor
I AM making a complaint regarding the Immigration Department’s so-called online passport application-cum-renewal service.
As the nation moves from pandemic to endemic with the Malaysian borders opening up, predictably people are renewing their passports to be able to travel again.
But what’s the point of doing an online application and still have to go to the Immigration Department twice? And each time having to queue up for hours.
Yesterday morning (April 13) was my fourth time at the Putrajaya Immigration Department. The first time I came at 11am, the officer told me “nombor habis” (all queue numbers have been taken up) and to return at 2pm.
When I came at 2pm, I saw two very long lines of people queueing up to take the lift up to Level 3 (where the Immigration Department is located). I blamed it on my hour-long lunch break. So I decided to go early the next day.
I arrived at 7.45am the next day (15 minutes before office opens) yet the line was from the entrance reaching the road. So I gave up as judging from the queue, I was not confident I could make it back to office by 9am.
Yesterday, I arrived at 7.15am and the length of the queue was horrendous (see pic).
Beyond that, filling up the online form and taking your own mugshot to fit the specification is not an easy task to fulfill. It took me several tries.
Next, we are doing the job of registration ourselves by making online payment to save the officers’ time yet we still have to go to the Immigration Department for verification of documents. And not mention, to be there again to collect our passports.
So what’s the point of lauding that this is an online application? Firstly, tax payers money are used to develop the online interface, next we are asked to upload our photos and do our own registration, then we are still asked to go to the Immigration Department anyway.
This is a really inefficient and broken system that pretends to be modern and developed. Online system is supposed to make it easier for people – not harder. Please buck up. — April 14, 2022
JR Ong is a contributor to FocusM.
The views expressed are solely of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Focus Malaysia.
