Malaysia will soon start producing passports, Identity Cards and other travel documents for South Sudan after a similar deal between Juba and Germany was recently dissolved​ after financial misunderstandings.
The Directorate of Passports and Immigration in South Sudan has just signed a memorandum of understanding with its Malaysian counterpart to enhance bilateral cooperation in the fields of immigration management, technical expertise exchange and border control.
The signing of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) took place during an official visit by a high-level South Sudanese delegation to Malaysia, which was headed by Major General Eliya Costa, the Director General of Civil Registry Nationality Passports and ImmigrationÂ
Major General Costa revealed that the visit included a series of technical meetings with Malaysian immigration officials during which the delegation reviewed the latest systems used in issuing passports and identity cards.
That is in addition to modern technologies in printing and digital transformation.
Costa expressed appreciation for Malaysian support stressing that this partnership will contribute to the development of South Sudan’s national systems
This newly hatched cooperation comes at the time when South Sudan as the country faces a crisis due to disruptions in the issuance of official travel and identification documents.
The disruption occurred after the government in Juba failed to settle payments to the contracted German company, the Mühlbauer Group, leading to a suspension of services for several months.
The firm through the Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) project in South Sudan, was commissioned by the Ministry of Home Affairs in 2011, for comprehensive document solution.
It includes the provision of National ID cards and ePassports, the driver’s license, and the vehicle registration system.
But after the fallout there was acute scarcity of the travel documents, driver licenses and National IDs which raised public protests in some areas of the East African country.
Now the new agreement with Malaysia aims at addressing these challenges by leveraging Malaysian expertise to streamline procedures and expedite issuance processes.
This step, according to the South Sudanese officials, is part of a broader government policy to strengthen international partnerships and modernize administrative infrastructure in line with global standards to enhance the efficiency of services provided to citizens