The foreign ministry has informed the parliamentary standing committee on foreign affairs that there was an allegation that passports were not issued without bribe. The ministry officials raised the issue at a meeting of the Jatiya Sangsad body at the parliament building on Wednesday.
They said that the practice should be stopped and the process of passport renewal should be faster as there was no requirement of police verification. They said that the foreign ministry found involvement of a section of passport officials for the failure at starting e-passport in time.
Foreign affairs minister AK Abdul Momen said that the ministry received allegation form almost all the foreign missions that the authorities concerned were making delay in reissuing passports and the service seekers were not getting passports without bribes.
Foreign affairs senior secretary Shahidul Haque said that Indian high commission informed the ministry that the passport office issued three machine readable passports against a person in a year. Besides, the expatriates welfare and overseas employment ministry informed the JS body that one per cent of women workers working in Middle East countries were facing torture.
Later the committee asked the ministry to take necessary steps to stop such abuse of female workers there. Presided by the committee chairman Muhammad Faruk Khan, its members Shahriar Alam, Nurul Islam Nahid, Nahim Razzaq and Nizam Uddin Jalil were present in the meeting, among others.
