Bali dumps finger-printing – for now
Officials in Bali have done an about-face and halted fingerprinting of arriving passengers after just one week of operation.
But the move is only likely to be temporary until more fingerprinting equipment is installed.
The requirement for passengers to be fingerprinted, photographed and then queue for a visa has caused huge delays and anger.
Bali Update (www.balidiscovery.com) reports that following complaints from arriving tourists, the border control management procedure requiring fingerprints and photos of arriving passengers has been ditched on instructions from the Minister of Justice and Human Rights.
During peak traffic times at Bali international airport delays exceeding four hours were reported after the introduction of the new procedures.
The government has promised not to reintroduce the system until an adequate amount of equipment and personnel can be put in place to facilitate the smooth flow of arriving passengers.
Ida Bagus Ngurah Wijaya, chairman of the Bali Tourism Board, quoted in local media, said the short-lived border control measures had damaged Bali’s tourism industry.
Wijaya also pointed to the recent increase from a two-tiered US$10/US$25 visa-on-arrival policy to a flat US$25 fee when it was discovered that immigration officials at the Bali airport had misappropriated some US$300,000 in visa funds.
Said Wijaya, “According to what I read in the newspaper, immigration increased the fee to reduce corrupt acts. This is their internal problem; this is not the proper policy to resolve the problem.”
When the corruption of visa-on-arrival fees was discovered the officials involved were forced to return the stolen money and given administrative sanctions.
Then, in order to avoid the future possibility of a 30-day US$25 visa fee being booked at the 7-day US$10 fee with the difference for wayward officials, the government merely increased the fee to US$25 for all visitors.
Ian Jarrett
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