THE thousands of Jamaicans who recently flooded the Passport, Immigration and Citizenship Agency (PICA) office, in order to avoid the increased fees, signal the level of economic hardships facing Jamaicans now.

Fees have been raised before, but we have never seen this kind of response. Jamaicans are obviously at their perceived limit, at which they are unable to pay any additional fees or taxes.

Passing the burden to the people is often the quickest and easiest way to recover shortfalls in revenue for most public bodies/agencies that provide a direct service to the public.

Executive agency status requires that PICA and other such agencies be:

* self-financing,

* performance-based, and

* service-oriented.

PICA operates under a full cost recovery model, which means that services are provided at market value. In the present economic environment with the steep depreciation of the Jamaica dollar and the attendant increases in input prices, PICA operating under a full cost recovery model is placed in the unenviable position of either reducing the cost of production or increasing the cost of services offered to adequately fund operations.

While PICA is not responsible for the general economic malaise, the agency took the easy way out by increasing the cost of services on already overburdened Jamaica taxpayers.

The present People’s National Party (PNP) Administration creates hardships by increasing taxes, cutting spending on public services, and raising fees for these services. This is occurring against a background of no growth and fixed wages. The solution of the PNP Administration is to pass on the burden to the Jamaican people. This is unreasonable. Governments must do more than just pass on the burden to the Jamaican people.

The road to better

From a strategic perspective, a coherent policy of privatisation and outsourcing could be a very effective stimulus for growth in the economy and could form the basis for a strong public/private partnership.

PICA must first begin by analysing all the elements that impact:

* price;

* quality service delivery;

* service channels;

* processing times;

* business model; and

* fee structure.

All must be analysed and international best practices adopted, where feasible, with a view to creating the most efficient service delivery. Overall, PICA must evaluate how its fee-for-service proposal compares with other countries in terms of both fees and service delivery.

Our problems require bold and creative thinking, such as privatisation and outsourcing of services, which allow governments to:

* improve efficiency;

* contain cost; and

* increase customer service.

Some services such as passport processing and delivery could be done by the private sector, while responsibility for verification and security will obviously remain with PICA. There is no reason the application and payment for a passport must be limited to PICA offices. We have seen many examples of this locally and internationally, such as applying for a United States visa.

The expansion and privatisation of service channels through public/private partnership agreements would:

* improve customer service quality;

* reduce total processing and delivery times;

* reduce travelling expenses associated with securing a passport; and

* open up employment opportunities, particularly in the rural areas of Jamaica.

We propose that PICA develop an extensive network of processing offices and partner receiving agents to ensure that a certain percentage of Jamaicans live within a certain proximity to passport services — the modern international standard.

We can cite many examples where similar services have been outsourced to private companies that already have staff, the technology, and capacity to do this. Along with the US visa example cited previously, the Registrar General’s Department employs a courier service to deliver birth certificates to customers. The adoption of a similar strategy would:

* improve customer service quality;

* reduce delivery time; and

* provide employment as we anticipate the increased volumes will require additional staff.

When we speak about privatisation, let me make this crystal clear. There are some services which naturally should only be directly provided by the State. However, there are other services which can be provided by private operators contracted to the State or under its direct regulation. For example, in France, passport applications are made in person in the offices of local municipalities. The data is then sent to a local prefecture to be checked; then it goes to the Imprimerie Nationale for printing. The coordination and monitoring of this process is the responsibility of the Agence Nationale des Titres Sécurisés, an agency of the French Ministry of the Interior. It is mandatory for passport applicants to apply in person at their municipality, where their facial photo and eight fingerprints are captured. Applicants must also pick up their passport in person. At the time of collection of the finished passport, fingerprints are checked against those on the passport.

The days of centralised passport processing and issuance, however, are numbered internationally, with very few developed nations requiring centralised processing and issuance. In the age of information technology, centralised processing is highly inefficient and undesirable. Few of our major trading partners require passport applicants to actually apply in person. Canada, the US and UK do not require the applicant to apply in person.

Our proposal of the expansion of service channels will yield further improvement in the total turnaround time. Total turnaround time also speaks to the extraneous requirements to complete the process of application which offer room for growth. While the area of processing times at PICA is encouraging — as PICA presently has in place expedited services and recently launched its same-day service — the capacity to maintain this must be analysed.

In addition to privatisation and outsourcing, the Government must look at the efficiency of its internal business processes. For example, is there room for improvement in the printing process, which is usually a considerable cost item on the books of the agency? Energy savings through the adoption of an effective energy management framework must be considered. Staff costs and productivity issues must all be analysed to identify areas for improvement.

In the immediate short term, PICA could move to an electronic-based, online application system; payments for application could also be made online. In addition, we propose offering adult passport applicants a choice of five- or 10-year validity periods. Offering Jamaicans a choice of validity periods is an additional service that few other countries provide and will serve to reduce the immediate cost to taxpayers. Japan currently offers five- or 10-year validity periods and Canada is in the process of implementing a similar scheme. Locally, a similar approach is adopted by Tax Administration Jamaica, where motorists are allowed to pay the cost of registration in two tranches or one.

Information-sharing

Among the linkages that may be created in our proposal is either the adoption of the public/private partnership model enunciated above, or increased cooperation and data exchange between PICA and the Electoral Office of Jamaica (EOJ) in the verification and authentication of identification information.

We propose that:

* EOJ offices islandwide would be the first stop in the passport application process. Here, photographic and biometric information may be taken and a certificate of the same provided to the applicant.

* The data is then taken to PICA, in person or through an authorised agent, where it is now simply a process of paying the application fee and providing the verified information for printing in the passbook.

The adoption of the proposal would reduce the overall costs to the public and utilise an existing resource which is currently underutilised, except at times of heightened political activity, while reducing the overall burden on PICA, which should ultimately lead to an improvement in quality and reduction in costs.

All these recommendations will save the Jamaican people and the Government valuable time and money. They will also bring a new level of efficiency and convenience to an essential service.

In a difficult economy, governments must employ bold and creative solutions to drive down costs while increasing efficiency, instead of merely passing on the burden to the public. A Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) Administration will implement the bold and creative solutions necessary to make the public sector more efficient and reduce the cost of service provision to the public.

Andrew Holness is the leader of the Opposition and the Jamaica Labour Party.