More than 23,000 e-passports issued since September last year

More than 23,000 e-passports have been issued since September last year and Fijians living abroad have the chance to get an e-passport as well.

Permanent Secretary for Immigration, Yogesh Karan says starting with London last year, the Fijian e-passport is now available in Wellington, New Zealand and in Sydney, Australia.

He adds the launch at the US, Abu Dhabi, Brussels and Tokyo Centres will be done before the end of this month.

Karan also says that the backlogs for printing is almost over but they have backlogs for people that need to come for their bio-metrics but they are not coming forward despite constant reminders.

He says they have a sizeable number of printed passports which people are not collecting.

The Immigration Department says that they are progressively working to ensure that the e-passport is available to as many Fijian nationals living and working overseas as possible.