Change in authority of issuing diplomatic passports irks MOFA

ANIS ALAMGIR

The foreign ministry has lost its authority to issue diplomatic passports to the designated people authorised by the government under the new Rules of Business which have been introduced since April 1 last when issuance of Machine Readable Passports (MRPs) was launched. Under the new rules of business (revised in January, 2009), the government omitted the provision for issuance of diplomatic passports from the account of foreign ministry jobs. But, a tug-of-war has started on the issue between the home ministry and the foreign ministry since the foreign ministry noticed that it has no power of issuance of the machine readable diplomatic passports under the new rules. Not only that, even the foreign ministry is in the dark whether it can issue manual diplomatic passports with one-year validity in absence of the MRPs. Very recently foreign ministry wrote a letter to home secretary to make the issue clear to them. Foreign Minister Dr Dipu Moni expressed her dissatisfaction over the issue and asked her officials not to quit the war with the home ministry to restore its legitimate rights which her ministry have been enjoying from the beginning of the introduction of diplomatic passports. "I am surprised to know that the authority of the foreign ministry to issue diplomatic passports has been omitted from the Rules of Business," Dipu was quoted as saying at an official meeting of the ministry last week. Under the government rules, among others president, prime minister, ministers of all ranks, law makers, judges of the higher courts, secretaries, major generals, speaker, heads and members of different constitutional bodies and all officers of foreign ministry along with their spouses are eligible for diplomatic passports. Under the previous rule, foreign minister could also issue diplomatic passports to any Bangladeshi citizen under his/her own consideration. However, a foreign ministry official claimed that this provision was not applied by the present foreign minister. An Official preferring anonymity, told The Independent that the seizure of diplomatic passport issuing authority was a serious disregard to the foreign ministry under this government. He said that from the beginning, this government had been undermining the foreign ministry by its unpredicted decisions one after another. "There is no reason for confiscating the power of foreign ministry as it is handling the job very efficiently", he added. Talking to The Independent, a top home ministry official said, home ministry is the absolute authority for issuing any kind of passports. "We want to follow the international rules and norms and want to ensure flawless international standard MRPs." "However, in this case before issuing diplomatic passports, we may put the condition of foreign ministry's approval for getting any red passports", he continued. The government has been working, in phases, to set-up 85 new passport offices and six visa cells at home and abroad for issuance MRPs and Machine-readable Visas (MRVs). For non-resident Bangladeshis, 66 passport offices will be set-up at 66 Bangladesh missions and consulates abroad, which will issue the MRPs. The replacement of all the passports will take almost three years, which will fall inside the deadline of November 2015.