Touts ease the hassle of getting passports
Touts ease the hassle of getting passports
By Hera Diani
JAKARTA (JP): Obtaining a document such as a passport in this
country can be a major headache.
Long drawn-out bureaucratic procedures, irritating officers
and pushy touts are among obstacles that have to be faced
throughout the process.
No wonder people prefer to go to a service bureau or pay
middlemen to get their passports done fast, even though it may
cost them more than double.
Take Hery (not his real name), for example, who works at a TV
production house.
The 26-year-old man was assigned by his office to go to Europe
and was going to make a passport. But little did he know that it
would cost him almost Rp 1 million to get it.
"I went to Tangerang immigration office. There, a man with an
immigration office badge offered me help," he told The Jakarta
Post recently.
The man asked for Rp 600,000 (US$54.5) to get him his
passport, Hery said.
The official fee is Rp 110,000 for a 24-page passport and Rp
260,000 for a 48-page passport to be completed in a week.
"I didn't have much time so I said yes as long as the passport
can be processed in one day," Hery said.
But then the man asked for another Rp 200,000 because Hery's
identity card is less than a month old.
"He said that many people obtain ID cards in Tangerang to make
things easier though they actually live in Jakarta," Hery said.
"The next day, I met a lady who only paid Rp 500,000 with the
assistance of an 'insider'," he said.
Scalpers can easily be found at every immigration office,
except the Central Jakarta office. Just walk inside and someone
will approach and offer their services.
Someone like Marzuki (not his real name), a scalper at the
crowded North Jakarta immigration office, located near Tanjung
Priok port.
Marzuki admitted to being a middleman for 10 years now.
"There are many touts here. Most of them are unemployed
sailors. As for me, I also work at a travel agency," said the
man, who is in his 40s.
He charged between Rp 300,000 ($27.3) to Rp 600,000 per
passport ($54.6), depending on the number of passport pages,
either 24 or 48, and how long it can be completed.
"The faster you want to get it done, the more money you have
to pay. But it's negotiable," he said.
"If all your documents are in order, let's go to my car
outside and arrange everything. It's now 2 p.m., your passport
will be ready by 10 a.m. tomorrow," he said.
If you are wary of touts you might as well go to a service
bureau to arrange your passport.
They charge you somewhere between Rp 400,000 to Rp 750,000
depending on the type of passport and how quickly you need it.
The offices also provide a service where they will pick up the
documents from your house and deliver your passport. All you need
to do is just go to the immigration office to get your photograph
taken.
However, for Indonesians of Chinese descent, they need to
include their citizenship papers and pay an additional cost of Rp
100,000 to Rp 150,000 for the screening process.
Spokesman for the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights'
Directorate General of Immigration, Mursanudin Ghani said that
some of the service bureaus are indeed legalized.
"The bureaus are those who have been trained by the Ministry's
Jakarta office. You recognize them from their badge," he told The
Jakarta Post over the phone on Wednesday.
"It's a common thing in every country where people are busy
and don't have time to arrange this kind of thing by themselves,"
he added.
About the price, Mursanuddin said, it is logical that the
bureaus earn a profit from it.
"It's not that I'm justifying it, if there are complaints,
please report them to us," he said.
Mursanuddin, however, admitted that it is difficult to combat
scalpers.
"We can't take measures on them because that's the authority
of the ministry's provincial office," he asserted.
Mursanuddin said that hopefully the whole process will be
computerized so people could then just pay through a bank
account.
"But it costs a lot of money. We actually received a soft loan
of some $26 million from Spain, but the project was called off, I
don't know why," he said.
About the discrimination over Chinese Indonesians, Mursanuddin
was reluctant to provide a justification, saying that "there are
some things that can not be disclosed".
"It's very easy to get a new birth certificate or an identity
card. So we have to do the screening," he finally said, adding
that the screening is officially free-of-charge.
However, concerning the hustle and bustle in obtaining
passports, there are actually some people who do not mind going
through the process all by themselves.
A woman at the North Jakarta immigration office was extending
her passport without any assistance from middlemen and the
process was swift.
"My friends said that immigration officers will make the
process difficult if I don't give them money, so I gave them
some. But they returned it to me," she said.
Ndari, 30, also refused to use either a tout or bureau, saying
that her budget was limited.
"Besides that, I also want to know what it's like to arrange
it by myself. And it turns out to be okay," she told the Post at
the East Jakarta immigration office.
"Yes, I have to wait in line for three hours to get my
photograph taken. But other than that, everything has gone
smoothly and I got my passport on time," she added.