Jakarta – People swarmed the East Jakarta Immigration office, jostling in and out of different rooms just to get a small yet important gateway book, the passport.

Anyone can get a passport simply by standing in line for hours and purchasing a Rp 5,000 (50 US cents) application form, filling it in and then submitting it with all the required documents, including family data, identity card, birth certificate and diplomas.

Three days later one comes back, pays the standard Rp 270,000 passport fee before being photographed, fingerprinted and interviewed. This takes a few more hours.

"After completing these procedures, your passport will be done in five days to one week," an official in a light brown uniform at information said recently.

Or you can contact Kiki or one of the other many neatly dressed men and women who merge with the crowd at the immigration office offering their services to passport applicants. They are the scalpers, the middle-men or women who haunt the immigration office almost every day, trying to convince applicants to use their services.

"I can arrange your passport, but there is a price to pay. It is just like buying a train ticket. There are VIP, business and economy classes," said Kiki, a forty-year-old woman with a serious stare.

She then stated her rates. For Rp 1.5 million, the passport is printed and done in one day, for Rp 700,000, it takes two days, and for Rp 500,000, it is done in five days.

"It's all in the game. We give some money to certain officials at certain desks to facilitate the passport arrangements, so by giving more, it will be done more quickly," said Imam, another scalper.

He added that if someone arranged for their passport and did not submit all the required documents, the application might be rejected by the immigration office. On the other hand, if someone who lacked documents arranged for the passport through a scalper, he could get it with the help of insiders, no problem.

"You don't even need to queue for hours and go through the hassle. All you need to do is to agree with the price, hand me some documents, and I'll call you to do the interview, photographs and fingerprinting sessions," he said.

Although arranging passports through scalpers is more expensive, some people still use this kind of service. In a small restaurant right beside the office, a young woman haggles with a scalper.

"Can you trim down the price you've offered? It is too expensive for me," said the young woman. "I don't think so MBak, Rp 450,000 is the final offer," said the male scalper the man.

Another applicant, April, a middle-aged business woman wanting to renew her expired passport, said, "I prefer paying them because I don't want to queue all day long, be fussed over and slowed down by bureaucracy at the immigration office. "I'm a very busy person, I don't have time for that. I need my passport done quickly."

Santo, who needed his passport immediately because he had to go abroad in three days, had a similar opinion.

"The immigration office said my passport would be done in five to six days. I thought I could bypass the process by using a scalper. See, I have had my passport done today," he said while showing off his new passport. (pmf)