I refer to the June 8 announcement by the High Commission of Malaysia in Singapore to allow Malaysians in Singapore with passports expiring in 2021 to have their validity extended by 2 years, free of charge.
I applaud this good initiative by the immigration department as the process for this extension is relatively simple compared to applying for a new passport, and for the many Malaysians who are still in Singapore currently, this can reduce their anxiety because many of them might not be able to apply for a new passport as quickly as they expected.
However, I would like to suggest to the minister of Home Affairs to take this opportunity to go one step further and look into the feasibility of extending the validity of new adult passports to 10 years (from the current 5 years).
The benefits of such a change include:
- Reducing the demand for passport renewals as most of the passports are not fully utilised before expiry;
- Reducing the amount of manpower and resources required, both domestically and at our embassies and high commissions, purely just for passport renewals; and
- Enabling Malaysians all over the world to have a peace of mind that after applying for a new passport, the passport will not be expired by before this pandemic ends.
Studies also show that a lot of countries have been issuing passport with 5 to 10 years validity.
I hope this simple but well-meaning suggestion can be seriously looked into by the Ministry of Home Affairs.