Passport Dept Chief says three new centers to open in Kabul

KABUL (TOLOnews): Abdul Karim Hasib, the director of the General Directorate of Passports, said in a special interview with TOLOnews that three passport distribution centers will be established in Kabul in the next three months. Hasib said that the establishment of passport distribution centers in Kabul is intended to make it easier for residents to get passports. ‘We are planning to completely solve the passport problem in two or three months. New passports are coming based on contracts, and two to three centers will be established in Kabul,’ Hasib said. He stressed that the amount of corruption in the process of obtaining a passport has now fallen to its lowest level, and so far around 200 persons involved in forgery, corruption, and those who were receiving bribes have been detained. ‘The forgeries have completely ended. We arrested about two hundred individuals who were illegally taking money from people for helping to get a passport and handed them over to judicial institutions,’ Abdul Karim Hasib said. The director of the General Directorate of Passports further stated that serious attention is being paid to the distribution of passports for medical patients and students. According to Hasib, the earnings from passports in the previous year totaled 4.8 billion afghani. ‘We collected 4,821,000 afghanis for passports in a year,’ the director of the General Directorate of Passports said. Hasib mentioned the need to make the passport distribution process easier, as many citizens have complained about difficulties in getting a passport.