 The immigration department, located in the Lamar building on Bridge Street Casteries has revised its operations to ensure occupational health and safety concerns are adequately addressed while simultaneously transitioning to the technologically advanced and more secure e-passport system. Immigration department operations have been temporarily relocated to ensure continuity of service. Limited workstation because of space and we have some issues with air quality in certain parts of the building that we are not occupied presently because of health and safety reasons. Technical challenges have affected the e-passport transition which has resulted in delayed processing times. Assistant superintendent of the immigration department, Sean Alexander, has acknowledged the inconveniences the service disruptions have caused the public. We acknowledge that there are some inconvenience and we do apologise for that but it's way way beyond our control so we advise again that no need to come to the office if you don't have any emergency or you're not travelling in the immediate future. And despite the limitation, the department is working and yes we are working to put measures in place where we can streamline things and you know, persons can have a smoother entrance into the office to apply for a passport and to get out as quickly as possible. The immigration department in the interim currently processes a maximum of 50 e-passport applications on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Collection days are reserved for Tuesdays and Thursdays. Although the new e-passport facility has gone live, the immigration department is reminding the public the current machine readable passports are still valid for travel. That means your machine readable passport will still be accepted at air and seaports around the world. I would like to advise the public that the machine readable passports that they currently carry, the passport is valid until the expiration date that is on it. So if you're not travelling or you don't have a medical emergency or anything of the sort, no need to come to change your passport. You can use that passport until up to the expiration date. So no need to come to the office. So we will only look at persons who are travelling and they have emergencies and medical emergencies to process now. These persons can wait. If you have a few months on your passport or even a year or two, no need to come to the office, these passports are still valid. You can travel any part of the world with it. There is no plans to get rid of the machine readable until it expires. So if you have a machine readable now, at the end of it life, then you will receive a new passport which is an e-passport. So gradually, eventually, the machine readable will be fixed. Just to make it clear, if my machine readable doesn't expire until 2026, I don't need to come to apply. Do I need to come to apply for it? If I need to come to apply, I can give an example myself. My passport is a machine readable. It's valid until 2026 and I would not be renewing mine. It's not necessary. The cost to obtain an e-passport is $250. An additional $50 charge is applied to express or expedited e-passport applications. From the Office of the Prime Minister, Rihanny Isidou.