2 Hour Passport Renewal

For all the short comings of our country which includes:

- racial discrimination which we’re not supposed to talk about

- our weak currency which means our holidays are confined to a handful of neighbouring countries unless we want to spend 2 months of salary on 4 days of holiday

- demolition of buildings with cultural or historical significance

- the mortal danger we’re exposed to be it in our homes, in our cars and in the streets which is getting worst each day

among many other gripe we have but have learnt to live with.

Today, my experience at the immersion department warrants a big fat brownie point to our country and the government service in my books.

I went to the Immigration Department at 9am today with Michelle Stays On The Sea Shore (formerly known as Michelle Shell) to renew our passports. We lined up in front of machines in a room called KIPPAS for about 20 minutes before it was our turn.

We then placed our old passports into a slot and slipped our MyKad into another slot. Then we scanned out thumb prints and clicked a few buttons on the touch screen and inserted RM300 after which a receipt was produced.

The friendly officers in the room were smiling and happily told us to collect our passports on the first floor of the building in 2 hours.

2 hours?!! But we used to wait one whole week to collect our passports. Could this be true? Could the government system improve that much within the last few years? Sure I heard of the automated system a few years ago but there were so many problems at launch.

Hoping for the best and still feeling skeptical, Michelle Stays On The Sea Shore and I went to Starbucks for coffee and cigarettes and 1 ½ hours later, trotted back to the Immigration Department, got a number and got our passports within 10 minutes!

Which means from the time of completed submission and full payment, we received our passport in UNDER 2 hours.

Malaysia, specifically the government sector, can actually be efficient.

I’m totally amazed.