Thursday, February 15, 2007

GEORGETOWN, Guyana (GINA): Guyana will soon be joining other Caribbean countries to provide a more secure passport system, which the region is introducing to protect against multiple issuance of the travel document.

“The equipment for the passports are currently being installed at the Cheddi Jagan International Airport …we hope by August the passport would be in Guyana,” Minister of Home Affairs Clement Rohee said.

At present, Immigration officials are undergoing training, which is expected to be completed in time for the arrival of the new passports.

“We are making good progress …we have settled the design and content of the passport,” Rohee said.

The passport has a new design featuring Guyana’s flora and fauna, highly secure, with tamper-resistant engravement and lithographic security printing.

The new system meets the standards of the International Civil Aviation Organization, Doc 9303, Part 1 Machine Readable Passports.

The new system will check all passport applications against a database of biometric information for all passport holders. It will also assist in the fight against terrorism, immigrant smuggling and trafficking in persons.

On December 8, 2006 Minister Rohee and Canadian Bank Note Company Limited (CBN) Vice-President Simon Wall signed the final agreement for the production of the passports through a computerised system.

CBN is a Canadian company and has supplied secure passport-issuing systems to Dominica, Grenada, Jamaica, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, St Kitts and Nevis and St Lucia and has delivered more than 50 secure identification systems to governments worldwide.

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