By Mizan Rahman
Dhaka
The Saudi embassy in Dhaka has refused to give visas to 16 government officials who were scheduled to visit the kingdom to oversee the enrolment of machine readable passports (MRPs), Bangladesh home ministry sources said yesterday.
The officials include the senior secretary and two additional secretaries to the home ministry, and the director general of the passport
department.
The Saudi embassy authorities have informally said that the Saudi ambassador to Bangladesh is now in Saudi Arabia and it is possible for him to issue visas for these officials,
according to the sources.
“The official currently in-charge of the Saudi embassy said that the ambassador was instructed not to issue visas for Bangladesh officials to visit Saudi Arabia for the purpose of MRP enrolment,” additional secretary in the home ministry Mostafa Kamal Uddin said.
“The home ministry officials concerned, however, will apply again for visa,” the
official said.
The Bangladesh government had assigned a high-powered team, headed by senior secretary in the home ministry Mozammel Haque Khan, to visit Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Malaysia soon to resolve the MRP crisis there.
The team had decided to visit Saudi Arabia next week.
Two teams - one each from the home ministry and IRIS Corporation Berhad - have been assigned to provide MRPs, are working on issuing travel-related advices to
expatriate Bangladeshis.
However, delay in issuing the new passports is leading to uncertainties among the expatriates.
So far only 7,549 MRPs have been issued for Bangladeshis in Saudi after completing 40,996 MRP enrolments. Only 500,000 expatriate Bangladeshis in Saudi Arabia, out of 2.9mn, have new
passports.
