Minister of Foreign Affairs and Immigration Fred Mitchell announced in the House of Assembly yesterday that the wait time for passports is now 12 weeks.

It was recently announced that the wait time to obtain a passport was eight weeks however, the Mitchell said, that is not so due to the challenges at the Passport Office.

“The Passport Office continues to face challenges and unfortunately the expected delivery time on average now for passports is 12 weeks and not the eight week previously announced,” he said.

“I am in the process of seeking additional emergency resources to see whether or not this can be solved. You will note that people will have to rid of hand written passports by the end of this year. This together with the summer rush has caused a spike in the number of applications. I was advised whereas we were seeing150 per day last year; we are now seeing more than 300 per day this year.”

The minister apologized for the inconvenience and noted that resource constraints are the main issue concerning the challenges at the Passport Office.