Misuse of Indonesian passports continues
Misuse of Indonesian passports continues
JAKARTA (JP): Rampant misuse of Indonesian service passports
continues to be a large problem, which needs serious and
coordinated attention from all state ministries.
In the last year, over 150 people have allegedly improperly
obtained a service passport after getting a departmental or state
agency recommendation.
The last known case occurred three weeks ago when four
Indonesians using service passports were arrested by Japanese
authorities in Tokyo for overstaying and illegally working in the
country.
The four suspects -- I Nyoman Sukadana, I Gde Armada, Nyoman
Yogiasa and Irma Yusfina Savitri -- are still being detained at
the Indonesian Embassy in Tokyo.
Indonesian passports come in three forms: green colored
passports for regular citizens, blue service passports for those
traveling on official state business and black diplomatic
passports.
Regular passports are issued by the Immigration Office, while
service and diplomatic passports by the foreign ministry.
The issuance of diplomatic passports is subject to extremely
strict regulations as they entitle holders to absolute diplomatic
immunity.
They are usually limited to high-ranking state officials and
members of the diplomatic corps along with their immediate
family.
Those who are assigned on state business overseas are
entitled, after the recommendation of their respective state
institution, to obtain service passports.
However, several cases have highlighted that many departments
need to tighten their screening process when recommending
applicants to the foreign ministry.
The case involving the four Indonesians in Japan is a glaring
example of the misuse of service passports.
"On their service passports it states that they are lecturers
from the state-run Mahasaraswati University in Bali and sent by
the ministry of national education for research purposes," the
foreign ministry's director of consular affairs, Pieter Taruyu
Vau, said here on Wednesday.
However, it turns out they left Japan to seek employment.
One of the suspects, Sukadana has admitted he was a farmer in
Tegal Cangkring village, Bali, and that he paid Rp 40 million
(US$57,14) to a local labor supply office to go to Japan.
Pieter said his directorate had issued service passports to
the suspects because it had received letters of recommendation
from the ministry of national education and the state secretary's
office.
He revealed this was the third case in the last six months
that involved the national education ministry.
"We are going to have a coordinating meeting with the police
soon," he added.
Pieter said his office had already sent two formal letters
about the matter to the national education ministry.
"They have yet to reply," he remarked.
Officials at the education ministry were not available for
comment on Wednesday.
Pieter expressed hope that his colleagues in other ministries
would pay more attention to the matter, particularly when
filtering candidates recommended for service passports.
When asked if the foreign ministry itself could not double
check the applicants, Pieter said there were insufficient
resources to do so.
"On average we get about 20 applications per day, if we have
to call them up one-by-one it would be impossible," he said.
Between April 1998 to March 1999 the foreign ministry issued
7,201 service passports and 950 diplomatic passports. In the
period between April to October of last year 5,302 service
passports were issued and 900 diplomatic ones.(04)