People have taken a leave, ordered tickets and booked hotels, but they cannot get their passports in order to leave the country
Citizens who have planned to spend their summer vacation outside Armenia and have to get passports for themselves or their children have been let down by the Visa and Passport Department, the Police of the Republic of Armenia. People, knowing in advance that they could get new passports within 5 days, according to the law, have bought tickets, booked hotels, taken a leave from work, but when they tried to get their new passports at the date provided, it turned out they were not ready yet. The passport office explained that there were problems with printing and they didn’t know when they would be ready.
The Antonyans are among the aggrieved. Hoping that the passport office would give their child’s passport at the date provided, they have planned when and where they should leave for vacation. In Vahe Antonyan’s words, “We have organized the vacation of me and my wife, given the words of our local passport office officials – they told us not to worry, there wouldn’t be a problem. And when we went to get the passport on the day they fixed, we faced the reality. They said that it was delayed and didn’t even mention an approximate date when we could get it. Not only do they cause such inconveniences giving the runaround, we also suffer financially – the leaves we have taken will be wasted. If problems arise, they should inform citizens in advance that, let’s say, in 5 or 10 days the passport will not be ready and people will know what they should do, given that. In a nutshell, the Visa and Passport Department has ruined our summer vacation, since we don’t have the possibility to take another leave from work.”
Another family let down by the Visa and Passport Department, which lives in the community of Erebuni, complained to Aravot that they had brought tickets to fly to Moscow on vacation and they should leave a few days after, but the children’s passports couldn’t be gotten in any way. These citizens will also suffer losses, since they will be compelled to either return the tickets or change them, but in either case the citizens will lose money, taking into account that there is not much time left. The passport office of Erebuni explained the delay in giving passports by technical problems too.
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As for what technical problems there were and whether in the end the citizens would be able to get their passports, we tried to find out from Hovhannes Kocharyan, the head of the Visa and Passport Department of the police. According to him, the demand for passports has been more than predicted in this season, because of which the system works overloaded and they don’t manage to print all of them. Mr. Kocharyan also assured that 16 thousand new passports would be brought to Armenia within the next few days and citizens whose 5-day term of getting a passport had expired would be able to get them. As for the citizens who had already bought tickets, the head of the department assured that if those citizens submitted their tickets or their copies to the local office, they would be able to get their newly-printed passports out-of-order. The head of the department promised that the problem would have been completely fixed by the end of this month. The Armenian passports are printed in France at the moment and there are certain problems, whereas, as the head of the department informed, there is a new winner in the contest for printing an additional bunch of our passports and a part of our passports will be printed in Armenia, which is quite beneficial for our country in terms of time and money.
Nelly BABAYAN
