THE Immigration Division of the Ministry of Commerce, Industry, Labour and Immigration (MCILI) is beginning to decentralize passport services to major provincial centers starting with Noro and Auki in Western and Malaita Provinces.
The rollout is part of the ongoing reforms undertaken by the Division due to the high demand for passport services from across the country, mainly due to nationals seeking seasonal work overseas under the current Australia and New Zealand labour mobility schemes as well as tertiary studies.
The Noro Outpost passport center will begin services on 7th March soon after the installation of Mobile Enrolment Unit equipment to process applications remotely. This will be followed by Auki and later other provincial centers.
The Noro Immigration Outpost Office will be responsible for servicing applications from both Western and Choiseul Provinces while Auki will be responsible for Malaita Province. These two are strategic locations identified with the high demand for passport services besides Honiara.
Meanwhile, the Immigration Division continues to rollout mobile passport enrollment services to Western Province in the towns of Noro and Gizo from 7-14 March and 15-20 March respectively.
“The deployment and decentralization of Immigration services to provinces is a step forward by the government to meet the demand for local workers especially, the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility targeted Labour market of 16,000 workers by 2026,” said Acting Director of Immigration, Chris Akosawa.
The Immigration Division is looking forward for a successful Immigration roll out of passport services for Western and Malaita Provinces soon.
