Following President Muhammadu Buhari’s approval, Thursday, of the Nigerian Security Printing & Minting Company (NSPMC) as the sole printer of all Nigerian e-passports and related documentation, the country is set to save over N24 billion annually from the outsourcing of the production and personalisation of the booklets to foreign companies.
The Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) before now, on behalf of the Federal Government, paid about N24 billion ($66.8 million) annually to Malaysia, the Netherlands and South Africa for the production of the Nigerian international passport booklets.
BusinessDay calculations, from figures given by Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) sources, show that passport offices across Nigeria issue at least 4,800 passports on a daily basis and about 1,248,000 passports a year, going by five working days in week.
BusinessDay gathered that the Ikoyi, Lagos office of NIS issues an average of 800 passports daily but has demand of over 1,000, while Festac and Ikeja combined issue 1,000 passports daily with demand of over 1,400. Abuja issues an average of 500 passports daily with demand of over 800; Kano, Asaba, Ogun and Ibadan issue 500 passports altogether, with demand of almost 1,000, while other states in Nigeria combined issue an average of 2,000 passports daily with demand of over 3,000.
The government spends about N19,500 for the production of one passport. This implies that the government spends N19,500 x 1,248,000 to produce Nigerian passports every year, which amounts to N24.34 billion.
This amount will now be retained in the country with President Buhari’s approval of NSPMC as the sole printer of Nigerian e-passports.
Aside from the huge savings, Clement Amuda, a retired diplomat, said printing the passports by an indigenous company would help the country gain respect on the international scene.
“There are things you don’t outsource no matter the circumstance. All the countries that have produced our passports in the past all have a chunk of our data and security profiling, which questions the sovereignty of any sane country,” Amuda said.
Emeka Ossai, an immigration lawyer, was more concerned with the capacity of the NSPMC (the Mint) to meet the huge demand for passports by Nigerians, saying the indigenous printing and minting company had been dwindling in performance for over two decades now.
“Nobody is sure that the Nigerian Security Printing & Minting Company (NSPMC) still handles the printing of naira going by its poor performance. If that is the case, how can it handle about 5,000 passports needed on daily basis for the growing population of Nigerians looking to jet out of the country every day,” he said.
Before now, the passport booklets were produced by Iris Smart Technology Nigeria (ISTL) through its parent company, Iris Corporation, based in Malaysia, then a company in the Netherlands was responsible for the biometrics and security details inserted into the passports, while South Africa provided the ink used for the printings done in the passports.
But Abbas Umar Masanawa, managing director/chief executive officer of the Mint, assured that since 2014, the organisation has recorded landmark achievements under chairmanship of Godwin Emefiele, CBN governor, a development which he noted has improved the production model, capacity and target of the company.
“The Mint had returned to profitability, from a moribund organisation with heavy losses. So far, we have enhanced production capacity, revenue diversification, reduced cost of production, institutionalisation of corporate governance, improved staff welfare and industrial harmony, among others,” Masanawa assured.
Despite the assurance, however, Ossai said a company that just recovered from moribund status in 2014 should not be entrusted with the production of the e-passport which requires competence, high level technology, capacity and skilled manpower, which, he doubts, the Mint has.
On its part, the NIS sees the new directive as a respite after decades of aiding capital flight with the production of passports abroad.
Muhammad Babandede, comptroller-general of NIS, is excited at the directive, especially the expected reduction in the cost of production and boost to the availability of passport booklets after the rollout of the new 10-year e-passports to Nigerians in Abuja and Lagos on June 25, 2019.
But a senior staff at the NIS Ikoyi office, who craved anonymity, noted that though NIS has about 10,000 passport booklets to flag off the 10-year e-passport rollout, the number is still not enough.
Gamji Aliyu, president, West African Associates of Travel and Tourism Professionals, thinks the printing in Nigeria should reduce the cost of acquiring the booklets by the applicants.
“I expect a 50 percent cut in the costs across all the categories of the passport booklets as the costs of overseas production and importation are now averted”, he said.
According to the NIS, the cost of the 32-page five-year standard passport is N25,000, the 64-page five-year standard passport costs N35,000, while the 64-page 10-year standard passport costs N70,000.
Aliyu lamented that the NIS may not reduce the cost when the booklets are now produced cheaper in Nigeria.
He thinks a hurdle to the availability of the booklets even when they are printed in Nigeria is the synchronization of the passport with the National Identity Number; meaning that those who do not have the national number will not be issued passports.
“The NIS said it is mandatory for applicants to first possess a National Identity Number, and without that, intending applicants should not approach any of its offices across the country. What this means is that many who need the passports and who do not have the National Identity Number will be denied the opportunity to obtain passports”, Aliyu decried.
In same vein, most Nigerians have decried the rigorous process of registering for the National Identity Number and those whose passports have expired and who do not have the identity are stuck even when the passport booklets are available or cost reduced.
OBINNA EMELIKE
