The Passport Immigration and Citizenship Agency (PICA) is integral to the nation’s border security system. The Agency, which manages Jamaica’s immigration process and matters related to application for and renunciation of Jamaican citizenship, must have in place proper systems that enable lawful travel and trade essential to economic prosperity, and national sovereignty. Accordingly, PICA is required to achieve certain performance indicators as a measure of its efficiency and success for example, targets relating to processing passport applications, requests for citizenships and passengers arriving and departing Jamaican ports. PICA is also tasked to carry out the investigation of offenses committed in any of the areas regulated by PICA.

Based on allegations related to the process of recruiting, hiring, promoting or and selection for professional training courses, we undertook a review to ascertain the credibility of the assertions. While we identified areas that needed strengthening, overall, we found no evidence to substantiate the aforementioned allegations. Nonetheless, I urge PICA to continue to reinforce its standards.

I take this opportunity to thank the management of PICA for the courtesies extended to my team during the execution of our preliminary assessment.