Government attempts to calms fears amid concern over printing contract.
Bogotá, Colombia – Colombia’s cabinet chief reassured the country that “no-one will go without a passport” last week – even as the pickle over who prints the travel documents claimed its third foreign minister in two years.
Newly appointed Alfredo Saade, who President Petro has now put in charge of passport production, told Blu Radio he would quickly implement plans to switch contracts from a private company to the national printworks, the Imprenta Nacional, a move which the government’s own top ministers have advised could cause a passport drought.
“I give my word, no-one will go without a passport,” Saade said, adding that he would “teach Colombia what a passport is, so the news media doesn’t start panicking”.
Saade’s comments came after foreign minister Laura Sarabia resigned last week, the third to do so in Petro’s government over similar squabbles.
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Sarabia had signed an 11 month extension to a contract to print passports with long term supplier Thomas Gregg and Sons (TGS), whose current agreement was due to expire on August 31.
According to Sarabia, the extra time was needed for the Imprenta Nacional to prepare to take over the complex job of printing highly secure electronic passports; a role it would not be ready to do by September 1.
But Petro abruptly announced cancellation of the contract extension hours later on national media, prompting the resignation of Sarabia.
“My government will not continue with Thomas and Greg because the tender they were conducting at the foreign ministry was fraudulent,” he said, without further details.
Averting a crisis
Petro then put the passport problem in the hands of Saade, who promised to sign contracts this week with the Imprenta Nacional, while obliging TGS to leave “approximately 600,000 blank passports” at the end of August to cover any potential gaps.
The decision sparked doubts from within the state apparatus itself, with the attorney general’s office issuing a reminder it would be “maintaining preventive surveillance of the progress of the process to implement the new passport issuance model, which… will come into effect starting September 1, 2025”.
It also reiterated Sarabia’s concerns that the 35-week gap would make the September date unfeasible, and called on the government to “adopt the necessary measures to guarantee the normal operation and quality of the passport issuance service for Colombians”.
The president’s latest attempt to shift passport printing to the Imprenta Nacional followed a long-running battle between Petro and his ministers to wrest the contract from TGS, which has printed passports for Colombia since 2007 along with many other documents including voter registration forms.
Technical hurdles
Since starting his presidential term in 2022, Petro had been publicly criticizing both TGS and the state’s own bidding processes that awarded the Colombian company multi-million-dollar contracts over several decades.
“Rigging bidding documents to predetermine the winner is corruption,” the president tweeted in February 2024, the same month a report by Colombian newspaper La Silla Vacia reported a bias in bidding terms that favored the company.
For example, it found “at least 14 requirements that explicitly state that passport samples must bear the name, flag, colors, the outline of the map of Colombia, the coat of arms, or the country’s initials in holograms, security paper, threads, and high-relief engravings”.
This meant competitors could not submit a generic sample of a passport, rather a finished product, automatically favoring TGS which was already in production.
But there was also evidence competitors failed to meet technical standards, such as the nationalized Imprenta Nacional which was under the spotlight this week for poor work printing foreign resident ID cards (Cedula de Extranjeria).
Faceless foreigners
Bogotá councilor Julian Sastoque announced he had “scandalous proof” that the national printer had botched the production of the “CE” cards vital for expats to access jobs and essential services such as banking and health insurance, with in some cases applicants waiting months for the cards.
Leaked communications between Colombia’s migration office with the Imprenta Nacional revealed constant delays, Sastoque added, and poor quality cards failed to meet regional standards. In a space of six weeks, 581 documents were rejected, with delays in more than 1,077 more documents.
In some photos on the ID cards the foreign residents were lacking hair, the top of their head had disappeared, or the faces did not appear altogether.
“The Imprenta Nacional‘s disastrous and mediocre work in producing foreign identity cards is a warning sign of what will happen to passports starting in September, especially considering that the design and printing of these cards is infinitely simpler than that of passports,” warned Sastoque.
Modern electronic passports require security measures such as data chips, holograms, machine-readable margins, and embedded fibers in the paper that glow under UV light. Sub-par documents could jeopardize international treaties, such as the Schengen visa exemptions that Colombian currently enjoy.
A roll of the dice
Many commentators recognize Sarabia’s plan to extend the TGS contract as a pragmatic step to cover a technical gap, and see Petro’s decision as a gamble which risks Colombian’s ability to travel overseas.
For his political opponents, the president’s decision has been rooted in “the government’s hatred of private enterprise”, according to Colombia’s Democratic Center party, which this week asked the attorney general’s office to step in with the warning that “the government’s erratic decisions could lead to a passport shortage”.
That seemed more likely this week when in an interview with Cambio magazine Sarabia claimed that her nemesis Alfredo Saade had already “ordered delays in passport appointments” and she doubted his claims that contracts were ready, or that there would be 600,000 blank passports.
“There’s no guarantee that this stock will exist. The risk of running out of passports is real if a proper transition isn’t made. The Imprenta Nacional isn’t ready,” she repeated.
For his part, cabinet chief Alfredo Saade has doubled down on his plan stating the Imprenta Nacional “was ready to supply passports”, and said “corruption was behind attempts to give the state printer a bad image”.
After September 1, Imprenta Nacional was to be supported technically by Portugal’s own national printing house, the Casa de Moeda, with contracts in place, he explained.
More clarity was expected this week with assessors from the attorney general’s office set to visit the ministry of foreign affairs to check on Petro’s plan and whether it can deliver “passports for all”.