Newly-appointed Immigration Director-General Mustafar Ali said the online renewal and application service could roll out as soon as next month, as part of the department’s systems upgrade to reduce queues at its counters nationwide.

With the system, the public can submit their applications online and pick up their passports later the same day, according to the daily.

Mustafar, who was until last week the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) deputy commissioner, also pledged that the passport shortage problem would be addressed in “the next few weeks” and that the documents would be issued within an hour of application.

The department had been plagued with delivery problems since May, with people who wanted to apply or renew their passports being forced to queue outside immigration offices as early as 3am, and even then, some had to return empty handed as the supply was severely limited due to issues with faulty chips in the polycarbonate data page.

Mustafar told the daily that he had met with both vendors involved in the supply of passports – Datasonic Group Bhd and Percetakan Keselamatan Negara Sdn Bhd (PKN) – on Wednesday to discuss the shortage, as well as to address the problem of passports causing problems at exit points for travellers.

“It has been agreed the vendors will deliver 70,000 passports weekly to the Immigration Department with immediate effect, or a total of 250,000 by the end of the month,” Mustafar was quoted as saying by The Malay Mail.

According to Mustafar, most passport offices were receiving sufficient number of passports, with some even able to issue passports the same day.

Some 1.46 million passports have been issued between January and last month, he added.