The Interior Ministry will issue passports only to the most urgent candidates. Due to the badly botched procurement process, which is rife with corruption allegations, there are currently only 3.700 blank passports, which doesn’t get even close to meeting public demand.

Interior Minister Nake Culev said that in March the Ministry will receive 100.000 blank passports from the German Veridos company, but in the meantime it’s possible that issuing new passports stops altogether.

On December 6, Interior Minister Spasovski was informed that there are 88.100 blank passports. When I was appointed a month later, I was informed that there are just 27.580 passports. There must be accountability for this mismanagement, Culev said.

The Minister said that he is working to cut short the delivery deadline to early March. Meanwhile, only citizens who have an urgent need will be given passports.