The current Afghanistan Passport/Visa Issuing System has been developed in year 2006 and implemented in year 2010, till date [2020] it has not been fully upgraded. This system is used by Central Passport Department of Ministry of Interior Affairs, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and some other consulates and embassies to issue passports.

The system was simple and created in purpose to accurately store and process data that’s provided by applicant while submitting application for acquiring a passport, and print validated and accurate data on passport. The system is combination of manual and digital process; submission of application, payment of fees, following of application process and receiving passport is all manual for applicants (service recipients). In the background accurate registration and record of data, process and printing passport is digital for employees (service providers), and also strange enough at the same time the same process is repeated in analog method as well (extra administrative workload).

The system was created in response to the problems of decade ago, hence rising demand of applicants acquiring passports within country and across the world, fraud, limitations of human resources and system capacity has become a great challenge. I remember having meetings with CPD, I experienced for the first time a government department was accepting all available challenges and genuinely believed in digital transformation as a solution for achieving their organization strategic goals. But at the same time I remember in a meeting we were having interesting discussion with another government entity that “who started planning about upgrading the APIS system first” (challenges of parallel government entities with similar mandates). 

In order to upgrade APIS/AVIS system fundamental changes in organization structure, regulation, administration process, technical and human resources are required. It seems that CPD and president office agreed with existence of available technical challenges (which is in the point to creating enabling situation for national threat and insecurity), and accepted that fundamental changes are required so they completely relied on IT experts who in the end offered solution that was marketed as cost effective and sustainable at that time (2017). It has been proven through our costly experiences that the most cost effective digital solution or in-house development is not always efficient and sustainable. We should always prioritize security (national and digital), efficiency, reliability and sustainability of digital solutions specially while working on projects that have impact on national security of our country.

To conclude in simple words, the digital transformation of Afghanistan has become a political agenda for quick wins which results in seeking for short-cuts to claim it as success point checked into the bucket list.

Everyone is talking about digital transformation, human-centered service design, proactive services, and simplified services and so on… but in reality it has become just empty slogans with no actual actions and no one bothers about the fact that for example it doesn’t require new digital laws stapled over current laws (I mean there is one law, it’s not like for digital solutions we must have different laws). It requires national vision and strategy, it requires change in governance.

Last week we lost 12 lives and several injured (mostly women) while receiving visa on their passport in a football field in Jalalbad. I have no words how to explain the chaos but as it can be seen in pictures, from my experience it’s the most barbaric public service provision experience, ever!

This incident should give us a wakeup call that in IT field there is no place for politics or political gains, as experienced it will always result in failure and disaster. We need to focus and have holistic approach on HOW we can digitally transform our government to improve government efficiency, accountability and service delivery and avoid extra administrative workload that costs millions per month, and possibly death of our people.

[Note: Photos are taken from ToloNews]

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