Costa Rica government Delays Issuing New IDs to Foreign Residents.

If you have had the bad luck of loosing your Cedula or having it stolen, or if it simply needs renewing, all you will get is a stamp in your passport. There are, in effect, no cedulas, as the actual cards have not yet been processed. When asked to present your ID for a transaction, you may be told that this stamp you have in your passport is not good enough!

In some cases, ICE employees don’t seem to be aware of the fact that foreigners have no choice, and they have refused to issue phone lines unless an actual ID card is produced. Showing a photocopy is even worse, so that there is really no choice but to carry a passport at all times, which could be stolen, causing more hassles and problems.

Sadly, there is nothing to do but wait. Lasercard Corp., the company that the Ministry of Immigration and the Exterior purchased the equipment to making the new IDs from, has a record of producing unsatisfactory work in the past.

Elizabeth Fonseca, Alberto Salom Echeverria and Fransisco Molina, lawmakers from the Citizen’s Action Party (PAC), all agree that the General Director of Immigration Mario Zamora Cordero should have chosen the Swiss firm NagraID instead of Lasercard, an American owned company that already has a bad reputation in the country.

The ID cards that were produced by Lasercard equipment, after winning a contract from the Costa Rica government in February of 2006, had issues with the printing rubbing off just two months after being issued. It turns out that Lasercard donated the sum of $875,000 to Immigration to clear its name and get a second contract. This comes after an agreement of $2.6 million was made with GTK Corp and Tarjetas de Memoria Laser de Costa Rica (TML) in 2003, in which the contract had to be terminated as soon as it was discovered that the cards were faulty and after some $500,000 had been spent.

This new contract with Lasercard was agreed on in December 2007 for $1.7 million. While Salom is waiting for Zamora to present his report on the contracts, it is still unclear whether further faults other than a bad printing were found. In the meantime, residents who are in need of a new Cedula must instead carry their passports wherever they go, while looking forward to the interminable days that will be spent in Immigration waiting to be issued the new ID cards, with the hope that this time it will be final, which is somewhat questionable seeing the reputation of Lasercard Corp. The company is also responsible for making Green Cards in the United States.

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Filed under: Living on April 24th, 2008