Delay in issuing passports and other ID cards to Chadians

Demand for passports and national ID cards have gone up at Chad’s national securities agency in recent weeks.

At one of their office in Ndjamena, dozens of people have queued for hours to access the office where applications have been made to obtain these important national documents.

According to some applicants the procedure is slow and time consuming.

“In order to get the ID card, they told us to pay for the form at the bank. After paying the money, we were told to visit an issuing centre and get the application form. But when we got there, it became very difficult, others gave their monies to the officers through the windows to be served quickly.”

The new system launched a month ago is struggling to meet the growing demand from Chadians. According to authorities they are devising means to address the concerns of applicants.

The problem at the moment is that citizens have been without documents for a very long time. And it just so happens that everybody wants the document at the same time and that creates queues. That doesn’t mean that the system is not able to respond to people’s needs. Right now every centre we have has five application stations, and within two or three days we’ll have seven per centre”, Fouyahta Moundai, the Director General of Chad’s National Securities Agency.

The Director General however cautioned officers not to engage in acts that seek to extort money from applicants.

There are a total of 4 application centres located in Djamena with 7 others in the provinces. According to the officials, the national agency for secure documents has the capacity to register more than 15,000 applications for passports and 5,000 applications for national identity cards per day.