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Long Waits at Passport Office Creates Climate for Bribe-Taking
By Gulnora Aziz
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| Applicants near the front of the line at the Passport Office |
Under a blazing hot sun, the police officer shouts instructions to the hundreds of people standing in the long line that stretches around the Passport Registration Management office building in central Baku. Some people say they started lining up for their international passports at 4 a.m. in order to get a good place in the line.
The policeman shouts again and starts dispersing the large crowd, telling those on line that there is no way they‘ll get their passports processed. He says they can only process 400 applicants; there are hundreds more people waiting. One woman standing near the police officer raises her voice and says: “We still have time; they intentionally disperse us so that we will offer them money.”
The Passport office processes applications three days a week from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m, but by the length of the line, it appears the office needs to extend its hours or offer residents more options. One police officer says everyday they have anywhere from 1000 to 15-hundred people applying for international passports.
A 40-year old businessman has stood in the line twice in one week, both times he has run out of time and has to leave. He will have to come back again another day.
An elderly woman, who identified herself as Polina, stands near the back of the line, but was about to give up and go home. “I simply cannot stand so much time on my sick feet, there is not even a place to sit down, it is necessary to come another day.” Polina said she needs the international passport in order to visit her relatives in Ukraine.
Polina says she was offered an alternative to standing in the long line. “One man has approached me and suggested I hand over my documents and give him some money, but where do I get the money from?” she asked.
Alovsat Aliyev, the chairman of the Migratory Center of Azerbaijan, and former head of the Passport Office, says passport employees intentionally create such awful conditions so that citizens will pay bribes to speed up the process. “Employees of passport services are under the protection of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and they in turn have to pay bribes to their superiors and that’s why there is this injustice. The line is nto for those who have money, but for poor people who don’t know their rights,” Aliyev said.
Rena Safaralieva, who heads Transparency Azerbaijan, says most of the bribery and corruption is occurring outside the Passport offices. “Bribes here have practically disappeared, but there are other forms of corruption - abusing office position. We see it on character of the complaints arriving to us when people say that are compelled to stand in a long queue,” she said.
Citizens say that it is possible to resort to services of brokers, which in the name of civil and policemen always are nearby.
Officially, an international passport costs 40 manats and takes about one month to process. Citizens can obtain a passport in five days if they are willing to pay 120 manats. An international passport, obtained with a bribe, can cost as much as eight times the official amount.
Alimamed Nuriev, the chairman of the NGO, The Constitutional Fund of Azerbaijan Republic and a former Member of Parliament, said that his NGO has carried out monitoring of passport services in Baku, Shirvan and Lankaran districts.
Preliminary results of the survey conducted in early 2008 by the Constitutional Fund of AZ, involving 300 citizens, found that some people stand in line and then sell their spot for 20 to 30 manats. The survey also found that some brokers will provide passport services – allowing citizens to avoid the line – for anywhere from 300 to 350 USD. Monitoring also has shown that the people who are engaged in the sale of passport applications don’t provide receipts and, according to the monitoring, they, too, share some of their income with the PRM staff.
Nuriev said it’s rare for people to complain. “Unfortunately, not all citizens, whose rights are violated, complain of the lawlessness of PRM employees, but even when try to make a complain, they often give up because they don’t trust the justice system,” Nuriev added.
The senior inspector of PRM Gunduz Garaev refused to comment for this story.
Ehsan Zahidov, the press secretary of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, says part of the problem at the passport office is a lot of people want passports. “We do our best. We are not going to do anything else. The panic connected with the distribution of passports and the long lines relate to a big demand for passports,” he said.
According to Arzuman Aliyev, the chief of Passport registration department, about 2 million citizens received International passports in Baku during first five months of 2008, while the department collected about 50 million manat as official tax for the passports.
Alovsat Aliev who formerly headed the Passport Office, says he has noticed that the centralized delivery of passports runs counter to the law. He says there are only nine offices in the country where a citizen can obtain an international passport, but according to the law, the passport should be issued in the place of residence. Aliev said that what occurs today creates conditions for corruption, there is big money in this sphere and if passports were available in all 84 regions of Azerbaijan, instead of just nine, it would be easier to obtain an international passport.
According to Alovsat Alievt’s own calculations, about 1.4 million people received their passports by paying bribes and therefore “the scale of corruption in this area could reach 420 million manat within the first five months of 2008, while only 30% of citizens obtained passports legally. He says the rest, 70%, used illegal methods to obtain their passports.
He says people in the regions are forced to travel hundreds of kilometers to reach places where passports are given out and they have to spend a lot of money on travel and accommodations, plus purchase the passport.
“There will come such a moment when these exhausted people will simply burn the Passport Registration Management building,” Alovsat Aliev said.
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