The Minister of Interior, Fathi Bashagha, said on Sunday that the issuance of passports was stopped and delayed, because company contracted previously required the issuance of 2.5 million passports, but the system exceeded its limit and reached 4 million passports, which caused confusion and collapse in addition to the lack of raw material and the failure to pay the debt owed to the company.
Bashagha said in a statement to “Al-Shorouk” radio that they want to develop the system to accommodate 25 million passports, a sum of money was allocated for that and the contract was referred to the Audit Bureau, but they had failed to respond for more than a year and four months, explaining that the contract has a very big defect.
Bashagha added that he protested against the audit bureau because of a delay in responding to them, which is what caused the delay in issuing passports in a natural and smooth manner, indicating that they decided to cancel this contract and work on a new contract with other criteria and now they are working on assigning a company in January or next February to present a contract that matches the specifications.
