Jamaican passport punches above weight, says Chang

WESTERN BUREAU:

New certification standards attained by the Passport, Immigration and Citizenship Agency (PICA) have enhanced the integrity and global respect of the island’s passport, National Security Minister Dr Horace Chang has said.

Chang believes that the production and issuance operations of PICA now weigh much heavier around the world and that the ISO 9001:2015 certification added burnish to the key crossborder ID.

“It means when you travel with the Jamaican passport, the receiving country can accept that passport with a level of confidence that this is a passport that is valid and that it was issued correctly,” said Chang.

“As a small island developing state, we punch bigger than our size.”

The minister was addressing a ceremony for the relocation of PICA’s offices from Overton Plaza in downtown Montego Bay to the Fairview Complex on the outskirts of the western city.

PICA, an executive agency of the Ministry of National Security, received its ISO 9001:2015 certification on December 10 from the National Certification Body of Jamaica.

It is among the first 18 of an initial 40 ministries, departments, and agencies earmarked for ISO certification, which is being facilitated under the World Bank-funded Strategic Public Sector Transformation Programme.

The Jamaican passport has a rank of 40 on the 2020 Passport Index survey, falling behind English-speaking Caribbean countries such as Belize, Grenada, Dominica, St Lucia, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago, Antigua and Barbuda, St Kitts-Nevis, Bahamas, and Barbados.

Albert Ferguson