Dubai: Some Filipino expatriates are contesting the Dh10 online passport appointment fee charged by a private typing centre at the Philippine Consulate-General. Officials, however, clarified that the service is optional.

Booking appointments for passport renewal can be done online anywhere, anytime. The consulate introduced this service in 2014 to eliminate serpentine queues at the consulate for passport renewal.

Only applicants with confirmed appointments can renew their passports, except for cases with emergency reasons.

Those who come without appointments were surprised that they could book their appointments at the typing centre but for a fee of Dh10.

A Filipina administration officer, who declined to be named for fear that it could affect her application, questioned the fee when booking appointments is “anyway free outside.” She said she thought booking there was mandatory since the staff did not clarify that the service was optional.

Another applicant, N.B., 33, who works in Jebel Ali, said: “There were five people in the queue before me who requested for the same service and none of the staff said that we have the option to do it at home for free. The staff even said we could get the earliest schedule to convince us to avail of the service,” N.B. told Gulf News.

This reporter tried the service for the purpose of verification and was told the same thing.

Deputy Consul-General Giovanni Palec, however, clarified that the service was just an added service for clients’ convenience.

“What we’ve been telling people is if you don’t want to pay the Dh10 fee at the typing centre, you do it on your own. It’s an optional service,” Palec told Gulf News, adding that the typing centre is a private business that is not connected to the consulate.

Palec said despite the existence of the online Passport Appointment Portal for the past two years, around 10 to 20 people still come to the consulate daily without appointments. This prompted them to ask the centre to provide the service for a “reasonable fee” since there’s a cost involved on the centre’s part.

The consulate in the past provided a computer that the public could use to book appointments. But the computer broke down eventually because people didn’t know how to go about the process. Palec said assigning consulate staff just to assist applicants is a waste of resources.

Palec said the applicants then resorted to the services of “fixers” outside the consulate who charged Dh50 to Dh60 for a fake appointment.

“This is one way of avoiding these fixers. It’s not a racket. If they want, we can stop it altogether and let the people just do it all by themselves,” Palec said.

On the complaint that the typing centre boasts that they could give earlier appointment schedules, Palec said the appointment system is a “free for all” application, hence, no one gets to have first dibs on the scheduling. But he promised to investigate the matter.