Six-month passport stamp to be implemented in Guyana next week
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| Published on Saturday, July 7, 2007 |
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GEORGETOWN, Guyana (GINA): Guyanese travelling to other Caribbean countries will have their passports stamped for six-months starting from next week. This announcement was made by President Bharrat Jagdeo at a press conference on Friday.
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| Guyana President Bharrat Jagdeo. AFP PHOTO |
However, the President said this will only be possible once there is no law that will prevent Guyana from putting the system in place.
“We will be implementing the system where persons travelling to countries in the region passports will be stamped for a six- month period. By next week once there is no law that will prevent us from doing so we will implement it,” Jagdeo said.
Meanwhile, Jagdeo said, it must be made clear that the CARICOM travel card, which will carry the same six-month period, will not be put into practice until the Heads agree on a date of implementation. The Heads are scheduled to meet in September at the inter-sessional meeting.
At the 28th CARICOM Heads of Government Summit held in Barbados from July 1-4, the Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community agreed on the implementation of a CARICOM travel card that will be issued to every CARICOM national except those on the Community’s watch list.
However, as Guyana prepares to implement the machine readable passport system, Jagdeo is optimistic that the travel card system will not compete with the machine readable passport.
“The travel card will only be used for the region. There wouldn’t be any major competition, but rather an addition because people will still need to use their passports to go to other countries out of the region,” Jagdeo said.
The travel card will feature facial and finger printing biometrics and will be made available at a cost yet to be determined. The funds acquired from the card will go towards the CARICOM security architecture. | | | | Reads : 220 | | | |
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