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2 top passport men involved

Admin — Sat, 15 Sep 2012 16:18:11 +0000

MRP Pilferage
2 top passport men involved
Finds probe; 11 MRP project staff still in hiding
A probe pointed finger at 13 people, including two passport office high-ups, for the pilferage of machine readable passports (MRP) at Agargaon office.
The names of Major Mohammad Shariful Islam, an assistant director of MRP project, and Mohammad Abdullah Al Mamun, a deputy director of Agargaon passport office, came in the probe report for negligence of duty.
They work in the Personalisation Centre of the passport office.
The other suspects are the former and current employees of iPeople, local agent of Malaysian firm IRIS JV, which is implementing the MRP project. They are former iPeople manager Mosharraf Hossain, former manager-in-charge Samiul Huq, manager SZ Arefin, senior officer and sorting in-charge Mirajul Islam, senior officers Zahid Hassan and Shahjada, assistant officers Iqbal Hossain and Ahmed Ali, machine room officers Dewan Sadequl Islam and Al-amin, and former IRIS JV employee Mohammad Tiash.
The probe report recommended actions against the assistant project director and the deputy director for their negligence in duty and also against the other 11 suspects, who or some of whom cashed on the negligence.
The seven-member probe body headed by Lt Col Mohammad Abu Nasir Bhuiyan, also deputy project director of MRP, submitted its report to the Prime Minister’s Office and gave the home ministry a copy of the report on August 23.
The probe committee was formed on June 21, after the immigration at Shahjalal International Airport had detected several forged MRPs early that month.
After the submission of the probe report, the passport and immigration authorities filed a pilferage case against the 11 employees of iPepole and IRIS JV with Sher-e-Bangla Nagar Police Station.
Mohammad Abdul Momin, officer-in-charge of the police station, told The Daily Star that the 11 personnel had gone into hiding since the case was filed.
Meanwhile, the probe ascertained that a total of 2,382 MRP booklets, not 2,280 as quoted on July 11, were stolen from the Personalisation Centre of the Agargaon Passport Office between June 2010 and June 2012.
On July 11, the passport department revoked 2,280 stolen MRPs. The authorities on July 22 discarded a total of 89,425 MRPs, which had been reissued due to printing errors or some other faults but still bore mistakes.
According to the probe report, the MRP booklets might have been stolen from the Personalised Centre or the trolley, which was used to carry the booklets but did not have a door or a lock.
It also held IRIS JV responsible for the pilferage, as the company did not introduce the Inventory and the Reporting System software to keep accounts of MRP booklets stored in the Agargaon office. According to contract, IRIS JV was supposed to provide security at the Personalisation Centre and Data Centre.
The IRIS JV has been implementing the MRP project in the country since April 1, 2010 and the firm had also been tasked with supplying the booklets.
Investigators suspect the booklets might have been stolen for quick cash.
The probe report recommended introduction of Standing Operating Procedure (SOP) in the Management System of the passport office to stop such incident.
It also recommended that the IRIS JV develop inventory management software, reporting system and other software in the next two months and hand those over to the Project Management Office.
Meanwhile, iPeople Chairman Syed Ahsan Habib denied the involvement of his company’s and IRIS JV’s employees in the theft. He said several persons had already been arrested with stolen MRPs. If the probe body had interrogated those detainees, the whole network involved in the pilferage could be unearthed.
The IRIS JV also defended itself through a statement to the probe body.
The probe report quoting IRIS JV statement said, “The Project Management Office refused to follow the suggested scanning process for the passports needed from the warehouse.”
The project management office had supplied a new trolley with a door and lock to carry MRP booklets from warehouse a month after the pilferage incident had been revealed, added the IRIS JV statement.
It also stated that carrying MRP booklets by an insecure trolley was unsafe.
Deputy Director Mohammad Abdullah Al Mamun told The Daily Star that the booklets were prepared in Poland and imported by IRIS JV. The booklets are stored on the 8th floor of the Agargaon Passport Office.
He said he had no involvement in the process as the project management office looked after it.
The activities of the project management office are overseen by army personnel and there were certain classified jobs that other officials could not attend to unless they were allowed by the army personnel, said several high officials in the home ministry.
But the probe report said had DD Mamun sat inside the personalised centre, he could have played his role properly.
On this, DD Mamun said he was posted at the personalised centre in September 2010, but he could not enter there until April 23, 2012 as he was not issued an access card.
About Major Shariful Islam, the probe found that he used to leave the office at 5:00pm while the printing of MRP booklets at the personalised centre used to continue until 10:00 to 11:00pm. He would not even ensure any replacement for his absence.
Maj Shariful Islam could not be reached over the phone or at his office after repeated attempts.

Courtesy of The Daily Star

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70,000 cases pending with Special Branch

Admin — Sat, 25 Aug 2012 00:38:05 +0000

Police verification for passport
70,000 cases pending with Special Branch
About 70,000 applications for fresh Machine Readable Passports have been awaiting police verification report for a long time.
Of the pending passports, 899 applicants have been waiting for more than one year, 2,525 for six months, 5,582 for two months, 15,682 for more than 15 days after the expiry of the delivery dates set by the Department of Immigration and Passports till August 14, the department sources said.
A fresh passport is supposed to be issued in 15 days for a fee of Tk 3,000, while in seven days in emergency cases at a fee of Tk 6,000.
The special branch officials said that they were facing shortage of equipment to deliver the verification reports on time.
Additional inspector general of police, Javed Patwari, also the special branch chief, at a recent meeting, however, had said that they were completing about 10,000 verification reports in each working day.
Amid the problems, a high-level meeting recently had decided that the Department of Immigration and Passports henceforth would issue passports within 15 days in express service and 30 days in ordinary service without police verification report if the special branch failed to prepare the respective verification reports before delivery time, said the DIP officials.
Brigadier General Md Refayet Ullah, the project director of introduction of machine readable passport and visa, admitted that delay of verification report was one of the major causes that delayed issuing new passports to the applicants within the stipulated time.
He said they could not issue a number of MRPs because of non-availability of police verification reports within the stipulated time.
‘The new decision on issuing passports without verification on time, however, would not pose any security threat,’ he believed.
Official sources said that
members of the Special Branch of police allegedly continued to collect money from the people who need their ‘verification’ for securing passports and created delay if applicants could not respond to their illegal demand.
A number of victims alleged that SB officials realised money from them for issuance the verification report but if declined they (SB men) unusually delay issuing those, causing delay in passport delivery.
If all documents and information were found correct, then SB men realise money either for ‘baksish’ or ‘transportation costs’, victims told New Age.
On August 7, New Age talked to about 50 applicants queued in front of passport delivery centre at Agargaon from 10am to 1:00pm on a random basis to know whether they were forced to pay money without receipts to the authorities in any steps of securing a new passport.
Of them, some 30 applicants having both permanent and present addresses were compelled to pay up to Tk 1,700 for both addresses while applicants having only one address needed to pay at least Tk 500 for the verification.
Of the applicants, at least 20 who applied under express service, said they had approached to passport office after due delivery date but the officials said their passports were not being produced due to lack of verification report on time.
The victims said when they approached the SB office at Malibagh or local police stations, they sought money to produce the verification report.
‘I had protested saying I would not pay a single penny as all documents were properly produced. But my report was not produced in time,’ said a businessman, Mohammad Ali Hossain Dulal, while he came to Agargaon Passport Office in the capital to receive his passport on August 7, two weeks after the delivery date fixed by the passport authorities.
He submitted his application and documents with Tk 6,000 on July 11 to receive the passport on express service and officials had fixed July 22 for its delivery.
But he did not get his passport on time due to delay in police verification.
Ali said he had finally approached a sub-inspector and paid him Tk 500 for his present address in Dhaka and Tk 500 more for his permanent address in Nariya upazila of Shariathpur.
‘I received my passport today, two weeks after the delivery date,’ he said.
Md Ariful Islam Sadi, a food technologist of Maritime Entrepreneurs, said he had to pay Tk 1,700 for verification at permanent address in Madaripur but he did not get the passport due to delay in issuing verification report.
Sadi said he approached the SB office in Malibagh due to delay of verification report even after illegal payment. But the SB officials sent the report on July 23, a week after the delivery date.
Aminul lslam, who works for a non-government organisation in Savar, said that he had given Tk 500 to Mymensingh police to verify his permanent address and Tk 700 to the police to verify his present address at Savar in Dhaka.
The special superintend (verification) of SB, Nazrul Islam, told New Age they would welcome specific allegations from any victims and action would be taken according to law.
‘But in last one year of my tenure, I have not received a single such allegation,’ claimed Nazrul.
The SB sources said that at a ministerial meeting in 2010 they had requested the home ministry to sanction Tk 200 to conduct each verification, but the request was turned down.
The DIP officials said in the passport processing fee there was no allocation of money for police to conduct verifications as it is a government duty. This led the policemen to realise money from the passport applicants.

-With New Age input

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Govt to issue MRPs before getting police clearance

Admin — Mon, 13 Aug 2012 17:26:04 +0000

The government has asked the passport and immigration department to issue new Machine Readable Passports (MRPs) in 15 days for emergency and in 30 days for regular before getting police verification reports to contain sufferings of the passport seekers home and abroad. The decision came on Sunday at a meeting held at the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) with Principal Secretary Shaikh Md Wahid Uz Zaman in the chair.
The government has taken the decision at that time, when about one lakh people were facing serious inconvenience due to delay in getting new passports in the name of lengthy process of police verification for last eight months.
A high official of the home ministry told The Independent that the ministry would issue a circular this week in this regard to reduce the people suffering of getting new passports.
“We have already prepared a draft of the circular, which is likely to be issued on Monday,” he said.
Mohammad Abdul Mabud, director general of the passport and immigration department, said they will start to issue new passports on the basis of merit of reasons considering people going out for overseas jobs and medical treatment before receiving police verification after getting circular from the home ministry.
“It was a practice earlier to issue emergency passports pending verifications, which helped people a lot,” he said.
Sources said, at least 100,000 applications for new passports are pending before the passport offices across the country and old applications for more than three months with an uncertain future are creating frustration among the applicants.
Every day new passport seekers are thronging various passport offices in districts and regional offices, even in the capital, in search of their passports to their promising land.
But they are going back home frustrated without knowing when they would get the little book from the authorities concerned, sources informed.
A high official of the passport department said that they could not issue at least 90,000 applicants of MRP because of non vitality of police verification reports within the stipulated time to provide the passports.
“As a result, a large number of people are waiting to join their overseas jobs,” he said.
“Authorities concerned should take emergency measures to remove the gridlock so that we can issue new passports to the people as early as possible,” he added.
A new passport is supposed to be issued in 15 days for a fee of Tk 3,000, while the emergency in seven days for a fee of Tk 6,000.
A senior official of the passport department said that at least 26 lakh MRPs had been issued till date.
MRPs were introduced in the country on April 1, 2010 to speed up clearance and improve security for travellers.
The charge for obtaining an MRP, on an emergency basis, is Tk 6,000, while a normal passport costs Tk 3,000.

Courtesy of The Independent

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Army given charge of passport printing

Admin — Sat, 11 Aug 2012 16:24:45 +0000

The Bangladesh Army-led ongoing machine readable passport project has been given the responsibility of passport printing, storing and quality control after over two thousand passport booklets went missing from Agargoan passport office recently, said sources in the Department of Immigration and Passports.
‘Under the office order, one army officer was entrusted with the whole procedure and his approval will be needed before any passport is issued to an applicant,’ said Brigadier General Md Refayet Ullah, the director of the machine readable passport and visa project.
The DIP, issuing an official order on August 5, said Lieutenant Colonel Md Jamal Mahmud Siddique, the deputy director of the army-led project, was given the charge of the personalisation centre until further notice.
DIP officials said that they were responsible for storing, verifying and issuing passports and army personnel had been deployed only to provide technical assistance to them.
Md Shiraj Uddin, DIP’s director for passports and visas, told New Age that the decision was taken to remove ambiguity among the officials, both of military and DIP, about their responsibilities with regard to the personalisation centre and passport issuance.
The move was made after an investigation held responsible some officials for the missing 2,280 passport booklets from the Agargaon office, said DIP sources.
Henceforth, Lieutenant Colonel Jamal will be also the custodian of the whole security arrangement of passport booklets and laminates storeroom, the official order stated.
Jamal will look after the passport personalising (printing), quality control, extra data page printing and handing over to the postal department during different phases of passport issuance.
After forged passports were found at airport immigration in June and onwards, the DIP launched an investigation led by Lieutenant Colonel Md Abu Nasir Bhuiyan, another deputy director, to identify the people behind the crime and to determine the exact number of passports that went missing from the Agarogaon office.
The committee has so far identified some 10 people including DIP officials and employees of Iris Corp as being involved in stealing passports.
Iris Corp’s joint venture with Data Edge Ltd and Polish Security Printing Works has been working for the introduction of Machine Readable Passports and Machine Readable Visas in Dhaka.
Officials said that passports went missing in different phases when they were being carried from the storeroom on the eight floor to the personalisation room on the first floor of the passport office.
Sources said that the criminals will be handed over to the law enforcers before the Eid-ul-Fitr vacation.
Sources in the DIP, however, said that a vested quarter is trying to protect those who were found guilty.
Various security agencies, including National Security Intelligence, were separately investigating the incident of missing passport booklets.
Officials said that some 26,00,000 MRPs have so far been issued under the project.
The Iris Corp under the contract will supply some 66 lakh copies of passport booklets.
About 35 lakh have already been supplied to the authorities, said officials.

Courtesy of New Age

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Row over decision to give manual passport

Admin — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 09:24:21 +0000

Undocumented Workers in KL
Row over decision to give manual passport
Experts and officials are surprised at the government decision to provide three lakh undocumented workers with manual passports, instead of machine-readable ones, to get them legalised in Malaysia.
Expatriates’ welfare and overseas employment ministry made the decision despite insistence of high-ups and experts that machine-readable passport (MRP) is a feasible solution.
Sources in Malaysia said crores of taka could go into the pockets of a syndicate that became active after the decision was made last month. The syndicate has already started exploiting the migrant workers, they said.
Malaysia recently informed Bangladesh that it would regularise the illegal workers provided they are given valid passports in three months starting from the first week of July.
“We have decided to issue hand-written passports since we don’t have the capacity to produce so many MRPs in such a short time,” said Expatriates’ Welfare and Overseas Employment Minister Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain.
However, Syed Ahsan Habib, a consultant to the MRP project, said, “Although challenging, MRPs can be issued to the workers within the deadline.”
“The positive thing is that a Malaysian firm [IRIS JV] is implementing the MRP project in Bangladesh. It has necessary logistics and manpower to do the job,” he said.
In a surprise move, Mosharraf told reporters on May 31 that the workers would be issued with hand-written passports.
The announcement came after the decision of issuing MRPs for the workers was made at inter-ministerial meetings between the home and the foreign ministries, and another meeting at the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO). The Malaysian government has also been insisting on issuing MRPs for the workers.
Mosharraf claimed he made the decision after consulting with the officials concerned. Staff from the Department of Immigration and Passport (DIP) will be sent to Malaysia for issuing hand-written passports, he said.
Asked about the cheating of workers, the minister said, “The workers should know how to preserve their interests.”
Seeking anonymity, a senior home ministry official said, “The minister’s announcement surprised us all.” The official was present at the first inter-ministerial meeting on the issue on May 25.
Home Secretary Abdus Sobhan Sikder chaired the meeting attended by secretary of expatriates’ welfare and overseas employment ministry Zafar Ahmed Khan, DIP officials and experts of the MRP project. A decision to take a crash programme to issue MRPs for the three lakh workers was made at the meeting.
Officials of the DIP and MRP project explained how MRPs can be issued within the deadline.
Secretary Zafar Ahmed Khan and Bangladesh High Commissioner to Malaysia AKM Atiqur Rahman also suggested issuing MRPs for the workers.
The suggestion for issuing MRPs for the migrant workers also came up at another inter-ministerial meeting at the foreign ministry on May 26.
A meeting was also held at the PMO two months ago to discuss how quickly expatriate workers can be given MRPs in Malaysia, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Nearly four million Bangladeshis now work in those countries.
The meeting was convened following Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s instructions to expedite the process of issuing MRPs for all expatriate workers, said sources.
Officials and experts said hand-written passports cannot be a wise choice when countries around the world are objecting to manual passports.
“We cannot go for manual passports when the facility to issue MRPs is in place,” said a DIP official, seeking anonymity. He said it takes less than 10 minutes to produce an MRP, and 15 to 20 minutes to prepare a manual one.
There is a risk that there would be mistakes in hand-written passports, as hired hands will prepare them.
The government has to send 200 to 300 people in several groups to Malaysia for issuing the passports. At least 5,000 passports have to be issued a day to meet the deadline.
A DIP official said the government can consider outsourcing the task. “The government should take the matter seriously in the interest of the workers and the country,” the official added.

-With The Daily Star input

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Expats get MRP service

Admin — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 18:35:23 +0000

Introduced in 4 missions; 2 others in process
Bangladesh has introduced machine-readable passport (MRP) service in Singapore, Malaysia, Abu Dhabi and Dubai missions as part of its effort to provide Bangladeshi expatriates with the service in its 65 missions worldwide.
The service will be introduced in Jeddah and Riyadh missions next month, considering the huge number of migrant workers in the Middle East, said Mohammad Shihab Uddin Khan, deputy director of the MRP and MRV project.
Mobile teams with expertise in MRP will be sent to foreign missions that lack manpower to provide Bangladeshi expatriates with the service.
Home Minister Sahara Khatun inaugurated the MRP project in Dhabi and Dubai missions to facilitate the MRP seekers. Each mission office can now handle a maximum of 100 applications a day which is too small against the huge number of applicants.
The mission offices will also have to replace manual passports with MRPs gradually, he said.
MRP books will be printed in Agargaon passport office in Dhaka, not any foreign offices, and then sent to mission offices abroad, said a home ministry official wishing anonymity.
The mission offices will collect particulars and biometric data of MRP applicants.
The Agargaon passport office will print passport books for mission offices, after the Special Branch of police in Bangladesh verifies the identity of MRP seekers.
At least 200 SB personnel have received training so far to do verification and put the information in the online database of the immigration department. Besides, 70 SB and DSB district offices will be provided with necessary equipment for the task, the official said.
Eight more Bangladesh missions and 14 regional passport offices in Bangladesh will soon get enough manpower and necessary equipment to issue MRPs, said the government high-up.
A project to issue MRPs and MRVs was launched at Agargaon office of the Department of Immigration and Passport on April 1 last year and now the service is available in the department’s 19 regional offices in the country.
The government last year signed an agreement with Malaysia-based IRIS Corporation Berhad for implementation of the Tk 526 crore MRP and MRV (machine-readable visa) project, which was originally taken in 1989.
A total of 190 member countries of the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) at Chicago Convention in 2002 agreed to switch to MRP from manual one by 2015.
Bangladesh will be able to meet the deadline, if the current pace in issuing MRP is maintained, said project officials.

Courtesy of The Daily Star

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