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[Editorial] Passport Difficulties

Posted July. 29, 2006 03:00,   

한국어

You can see an odd sight of people lining up in front of ward offices to get a passport issued starting in the very early morning. There are hundreds of citizens leaving empty-handed without getting a number ticket needed for application. The government, which boasts “an innovative system,” whenever it gets chances, is causing a great commotion in issuing passports which is an elementary level of service for the public.

President Roh held “an innovative debate with public organization CEOs” early this month and announced he would expand public services suiting purposes of the establishment of public organizations. The Presidential Committee on Government Innovation and Decentralization announced last April that the public service area turned out to be especially excellent among others after the examination of the level of the electric government. Is President Roh aware of the fact that people are expressing anger at passport issuing offices, saying “Is our country experiencing another Korean war? I came from Gyeonggi Province at early dawn and I failed to even apply for a passport. What’s happening here?”

It is said that the reason why it is so hard to get a passport issued is that the way of processing a passport picture has changed from putting it on the passport to scanning and inputting it, and that the number of those who want to travel and study abroad has gone up. If so, the government should have increased the number of passport issuing machines and windows so as to ease the people’s inconvenience. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, which provides passport issuing machines and workforce, is not doing what it has to do on the grounds that passport issuing machines, worth 100 million won, would become useless if a visa exemption agreement is concluded with the U.S.. I wonder from when they have been so concerned about the budget. They have been mentioning budgets worth of hundreds of billions of won or trillions of won on reckless regional development and financially inefficient welfare without much care.

Under the circumstances, the Seoul government announced an increase in issuing hours by three hours a day, but such a measure is far from addressing the commotion. Due to the government neglecting their duty, travel agencies which say they help people receive passports early if they pay them more money are profiting from the current situation. The government chanting “innovative government” just upsets peoples more. Without saying such words, the developed countries ease their people’s inconveniences by setting up passport issuing offices all over the country.