Security Minister commends PICA staff

June 01, 2015 | Jamaica Observer

KINGSTON, Jamaica (JIS) – Minister of National Security, Peter Bunting, has commended the staff of the Passport, Immigration and Citizenship Agency (PICA), for the hard work they put in to process the many persons applying for passports over the last two weeks.

Bunting, who addressed the staff at the temporary location at the National Indoor Sports Centre on May 29, said he publicly acknowledges the outstanding commitment of the PICA team who, for the last two weeks, worked long hours to process approximately four times the average daily volume of passport applications.

“This involved transferring much of the head office passport systems and operations to the National Indoor Sports Centre during week two. As someone with wide experience across a variety of organisations, I can confidently state that few organisations in either the public or private sector could have responded as well as PICA’s team to the fourfold increase in throughput,” the minister said.

He also said he wished to thank the Police and other agencies that provided critical assistance during this period.

PICA had to relocate to the Centre on May 26 from their Constant Spring Road headquarters to deal with the many applicants for passports, ahead of the new fees which took effect today (June 1). The PICA staff has returned to their headquarters.

Since announcement of the new fees on May 17, PICA processed 10,576 applications for the first week for the entire island and 9,708 last week.

The cost for a regular adult passport has moved from $4,500 to $6,500; and a passport for a minor has moved from $2,700 to $4,000. At the same time, replacing lost passports for adults will cost $11,500 (up from $9,500) and $7,000 (up from $5,700) for minors.