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Efficiency of ICA

I was at the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority’s building yesterday to submit my permanent residency approval form and to make my identity card.

9:00AM
- Reached ICA at Lavender. Got my queue number. ~50 ahead of me. [2.5 hours of waiting time]

11:30AM
- Submitted my PR approval form. [3 minutes of actual processing time]
- Join another queue to make payments. [30 minutes of waiting time]

12:00PM
- Made payment [3 minutes]
- Join another queue for my thumb prints to be taken. [2 hours]

2:00PM
- Fingerprint taken [10 minutes]
- Join another queue to collect back my passport. [2 hours]

4:00PM
- Listened to some lecture on how important it is to keep your passport safe (like we don’t know passports are important) and collected back my passport. [15 minutes]

Total time wasted at ICA just to submit my PR approval form: ~ 7 hours,
which consists of 6.5 hours of waiting time in 4 different queues (each queue for really easy work) and 30 minutes of actual processing time.

And I thought making passports and IC in Malaysia were slow enough (each with about 3-4 hours of queuing time).

August 29th, 2007 / 26 Comments / Trackback

Comments on “Efficiency of ICA”

  1. its even worse on a weekend man. the crowd is so bad, the staff work overtime and push the opening hours. (closes at 1pm i think)

    malique on August 29th, 2007 at 12:09 pm

  2. Actually i’m okay with the waiting time and all, but I don’t understand the need to have 4 queues doing really easy tasks. These tasks can be combined together, at least the first 3 tasks, for more efficiency.

    uzyn on August 29th, 2007 at 12:19 pm

  3. all govt offices are like that. its called bureaucratic system. haha… its like that all over the world, u know.

    i think its already better in singapore, than in other countries. ahem. u know lah.

    Daphne Maia on August 29th, 2007 at 12:34 pm

  4. My wife bring my children to change the photo on their passport on 10th, the place was so packed the stuff reject some people from entering the 2nd floor. My wife took 6 hours just to submit the application, even when photo was taken before hand. And we have to go back another day to collect the passport.

    Bomia on August 29th, 2007 at 12:44 pm

  5. Bomia, I actually went twice too. I was there on Monday 3pm but was also told to come the next day, which I did again yesterday but took 7 hours.

    uzyn on August 29th, 2007 at 12:56 pm

  6. Uzyn: Try imagine this as OO programming. Each counter is an individual object and has its own functions. Cannot make 1 object do too many functions.

    OK, I’m not making any sense.

    But hey…. queues are efficient. (at least to the top management level point of view).
    Congrats on your Singapore PR. Don’t complaint too much, wait they don’t give you pink one and revoke your blue one too. :P

    Chow Yun Fat would say “Welcome to Singapore”. Cheers.

    DK on August 29th, 2007 at 1:19 pm

  7. Huh? So it make sense after all, people will likely to go twice and spend 6-7 hrs… … quite standard isn’t it? Ha..ha..ha.. Welcome to SG!!!

    Bomia on August 29th, 2007 at 1:28 pm

  8. Actually.. I am more than happy that it takes ONLY 1 day.

    Maybe Malaysia is more efficient, but many other countries would take more than a single day…

    Also, Singapore is at least well organized… you know what you have to do, where you have to queue up, etc.. OK, maybe too well organized…. But it’s better than nothing..

    NTT on August 29th, 2007 at 1:59 pm

  9. Wow, like Bomia, I’m surprised that so many of you think that’s acceptable.

    :)

    uzyn on August 29th, 2007 at 3:02 pm

  10. Don’t see any reason to be happy even if it is one day. It voice down to 1 thing, efficiency of Singapore galmen, of Singaporean. If a minister son need to queue 1 day for that passport, you see something the very next day.

    Bomia on August 29th, 2007 at 3:16 pm

  11. I spent only an hour in KL Immigration including taking photo, filling up and submitting form for my passport! The queue wasnt long too. However, the passport would be ready after 3 working days.I was very impressed with their efficiency coz I don’t need to wait!

    Sek Ling on August 29th, 2007 at 7:42 pm

  12. Too many factors adds up to the long queues I guess…
    1) Too many people
    2) Too much “red tape” in order to have checks and balances. Which can be good for many reasons but would slow down the efficiency…
    3) Hmm, was wondering how many counters are actually “open” and “moving”?
    4) I was at ICA once to replace my IC. During lunch hours, some counters are closed, (of course lah, pple need to eat mah). If there are “part-time” staff around to “open” these counters, wouldn’t the queue “move”?

    paced on August 29th, 2007 at 8:58 pm

  13. the whole of singapore goes to 1 place to do their documents. of cos it is packed.
    they should open up another one, in some heartland area like jurong, woodlands, etc

    malique on August 30th, 2007 at 1:43 am

  14. Seems like the discussions is getting a little out of point here.

    My point of this post is not about how packed the place is, but about how inefficient they are doing things. Those tasks can be handled by 1 single counter instead of keep redirecting people around and creating more unnecessary waiting time.

    I don’t mind waiting for 3 hours to complete all the tasks at once, even 6 hours if there are so many ppl and they are already working at the most efficient state.

    uzyn on August 30th, 2007 at 1:47 am

  15. hi all, i not surpised at all of what uzyn had mention.

    After all we are still human. For us, at most we spend a whole day at the place, been redirect here and there. But for the staffs there, they been doing the whole task, job over and over again.

    Instead of just labeling they as ineffective, let give them a break and suggest some constructive suggestion to them to improve.

    After all we still human being in different working culture and working place.
    just my 0.002 dollars.

    cheers
    fredrick

    Fredrick on August 30th, 2007 at 12:20 pm

  16. Welcome to Singapore. Try the CPF board. I went with my mother to take her CPF… lovely wait.

    xizor2000 on August 30th, 2007 at 1:44 pm

  17. Fredrick,
    I agreed with you in a way, but it really is not the staff fault. Our galmen had make the place so nice, put in a good network, train the staff and give them a fast computer, that’s lots of money. So what’s wrong? Some thing along the line is not right. Do you really believe that so many people working there, and nobody know what went wrong? I don’t.

    Bomia on August 30th, 2007 at 8:43 pm

  18. Fredrick, I’m not merely labelling them as inefficient.

    I did give my suggestion: to merge the simple tasks into 1 queue. Don’t have to over-modularized. That would make the whole process much more efficient with less redirections.

    uzyn on August 31st, 2007 at 12:35 am

  19. a few wks back, CY went to the china embassy to renew his passport… and it took… 5 seconds (with pre-filled form and photo). haha. i was glad we didnt have to queue.

    i have to go renew my own passport this coming wk. not looking forward to it at all. the queues back home are most likely slower!

    Daphne on September 1st, 2007 at 10:58 pm

  20. Anyway think after the completion of the SOC as to standardize all computer hardware and network for most of the government agencies, it shd solve the hardware problem.

    This type of problem can never be solved in a day as it can sub divided into three camps.
    Namely people, procedure and system.

    Uzyn, maybe you can write in your feedback of the merge simple tasks into a queue.

    cheers
    fredrick

    fredrick on September 2nd, 2007 at 12:55 am

  21. Whoa!!! 6 hours??? That’s insane, no.

    Fauzi on September 2nd, 2007 at 10:44 am

  22. Hey, I couldn’t have agreed with you more. I for one has gone through the process of work permit to PR to citizenship and whenever I take my mother to ICA for the extension of the long time social visit pass, I literally have to spend days doing that.

    1. Half a day just to submit the application
    2. A couple of hours to collect some documents (where she is asked for a health checkup)
    3. Half a day to do health checkup (ok, it is not exactly a process within ICA … but still)
    4. Collect the result
    5. Return to ICA to submit a new application for collection (I was actually confused by all the DYI machines because I thought I was collecting the visit pass rather than a brand new application) and spent half a day there.
    6. Return to ICA to make payment and collect the actual work permit.

    I seriously think there should be some improvement to the process. Seriously …

    Wilfrid on September 2nd, 2007 at 3:23 pm

  23. 1000 - 245
    245 - 247: Submit form and passport, pay $150
    247 - 538
    538 - 548: Fingerprint, pay $50
    548 - 635
    635 - 648: Lecture, collect passport

    Hmmm.. 25 min out of nearly 9 hrs

    xiaoluo on September 5th, 2007 at 8:28 pm

  24. LOL. Another victim.

    uzyn on September 5th, 2007 at 9:04 pm

  25. I went there one month ago, reached at 8am, still took 9 hrs. I really can’t understand why need 4 different stations and between which a long waiting time. The worse is there was no tv nor water cooler at that crowded level. It’s just horrible. Luckily my office is nearby and i actually sneaked back. I went to renew passport at M’sia High Com and it took me only one hr. and they have plasma TV there! 2!

    wywy on September 10th, 2007 at 11:00 pm
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