A Lebanese passport. (Credit: AFP/File photo)
BEIRUT — General Security chief Abbas Ibrahim announced Saturday that in February, Lebanon will resume its passport production "to how it used to be before crisis," as a deepening multifaceted crisis has been affecting all Lebanese administrations and delaying passport applications.
"On February 15, we will bring back the passport production machine to how it used to be before the crisis," Ibrahim said in a statement, saying that the online platform for setting passport appointments will not be suspended "because it constitutes a civilized form for submitting applications for any transaction in the country, and we hope that it will be applied in the rest of the ministries and institutions."
This platform had been relaunched mid-June for making appointments to obtain or renew passports, after services were suspended for over a month. The online platform was created because of the high demand for passports following the ongoing economic crisis and mass emigration of Lebanese.
Ibrahim also pointed out that "the production force will return to approximately three thousand passports on a daily basis, as it was in the past."
The General Security chief explained that the passport issue in Lebanon "has to do with financing the tender that took place between the General Security and the executing company." He added that bank "credits that were supposed to be opened at that time were delayed 13 months as a result of a dispute over the price, the dollar-lira exchange rate, and the issue is also related to politics."
Meanwhile, General Security announced Wednesday its decision to stop receiving, as of Monday, Jan. 9, “exceptional requests” from citizens who want to advance their appointment to obtain a passport.
Before this decision, citizens needing to make urgent appointments could do so under certain conditions: if the application was already recorded on the platform and an appointment set, and the applicant was a student studying abroad, needed to receive medical treatment abroad or needed to renew a residency permit abroad.